The Judgment of the Court was delivered by

BHARGAVA, J. - The Modi Food Products, Limited, Modinagar, District Meerut, the applicant in this reference under the U.P. Sales Tax Act, is a manufacturer and dealer in non-edible oils. The U.P. Sales Tax Act came into force with effect from 1st April, 1948, and, under section 3 of that Act, tax was payable on sales of various goods including non-edible oils at the uniform rate of 3 pies per rupee on all sales. In section 3 of that Act, as originally passed, it was laid down that tax was to be paid on the turnover in an assessment year by every dealer but there was no clear specification as to which turnover was to be taken into consideration. In Section 7 of the Act, it was laid down that, for purposes of assessment, every dealer was to file a return of his turnover of the previous year within 60 days of the commencement of the assessment year. This provision in section 7 was amended by the U.P. Sales Tax Act (Amendment) Act (U.P. Act No. XXV of 1948) which came into force in the month of June, 1948. By this amendment, a proviso was added to section 7, permitting the State Government to given an option to a dealer to file returns of sales of the assessment year itself in lieu of the returns of the turnover of the previous year under certain circumstances. The mode of assessment was also laid down but, for purposes of this reference, it is not necessary to give the details of that procedure. The dealer had the option of electing whether he would like his assessment to be made on the basis of the turnover of the previous year, or, on the basis of the return of sales for the current assessment year. The applicant, the Modi Food Products Limited, Modinagar, chose to be assessed on the basis of the turnover of the previous year and, consequently, in the assessment year 1948-49, it filed its returns for the turnover of the previous year which, according to the system of accounting adopted by the applicant company, covered the period from 1st June, 1946, to 31st May, 1947. Under section 3-A of the U.P. Sales Tax Act, as amended by the U.P. Amendment Act No. XXV of 1948, power was granted to the State Government to lay down that, instead of sale of certain goods being taxed at the time of every sale tax may be imposed only at a single point in the series of sales by successive dealer. There was a further provision that, in such circumstances, the State Government could lay down that the tax on the sales of those goods at the single point of taxation may be assessed at a higher rate not exceeding one anna in the rupee. The exact language to these provisions of law, which need be considered by us, shall be quoted later on. In exercise of the power under section 3-A, the State Government issued a notification dated 8th June, 1948, in the U.P. Gazette (Extraordinary) of that date, declaring that, with effect from 9th June, 1948, the proceeds of sale of goods entered in column 2 of the schedule annexed to the notification shall not be included in the turnover of any dealer, except at the point in the series of sales by successive dealers mentioned in column 4 thereof under the circumstances shown in column 3 thereof. It was further laid down that, with effect from 9th June, 1948, the rate of tax in respect of the turnover of the aforesaid goods shall be as entered in column 5 of that schedule. As a result of this notification, non-edible oils had to be taxed at single points at the time of sale either by the importer or manufacturer depending on whether those non-edible oils were imported from outside U.P., or, were manufactured inside U.P. The rate of tax in respect of non-edible oils was declared to be 6 pies in the rupee. During the assessment proceedings of the applicant company, the Sales Tax Officer considered the question whether, while assessing the company for the assessment year 1948-49, the uniform rate of 3 pies per rupees should be applied to all the sales of the previous y