THE TATA IRON & STEEL CO. LTD. v. THE STATE OF BIHAR
Citation: [1958] 1 S.C.R. 1355; 1958 INSC 12
Court: Supreme Court of India
Bench: SUDHI RANJAN DAS , VIVIAN BOSE, T.L. VENKATARAMA AIYYAR, S.K. DAS, A.K. SARKAR
Judgment date:
Case summary
1958 INSC 12. Supreme Court of India judgment dated 1958-02-19. THE TATA IRON & STEEL CO. LTD. v. THE STATE OF BIHAR. Read the judgment and case details on...
Judgment text
S. C. R. SUPREME COURT REPORTS 1355 THE TATA IRON & STEEL CO. , LTD. v. February 19. THE STATE OF BIHAR (S. R. DAS C. J. , VENKATARAMA AIYAR, S. K. DAS, A. K. SARKAR and VIV! AN BOSE J. J. ) Sales Tax-Provincial legislation imposing tax in certain circumstances-Validity-Power of Provincial Legislature-Retrospective levy, legality of-Theory of territorial nexus, if applicable -Bihar Sales Tax Act, 1947 (No. XIX of 1947) as amended by Bihar Sales Tax (Amendment) Act, 1948 (VI of 1949), ss .. 4(1), 2(g). The appellant company, carrying on business as manufacturer of iron and steel, with its factory and works ·at J amshedpur in Bihar, was assessed to sales tax for two periods prior to the Constitution, under the Bihar Sales Tax Act, 1947 (No. XIX of 1947). enacted by the Bihar Legislature in exercise of its exclusive power under the Government of India-Act, 1935. The company used to send its goods from J amshedpur to various parts of India.
In the railway receipt the company itself figured as the consignee, it paid the freight and the receipt was sent either to its branch offices or bankers to be handed over to the purchaser when he paid the price. From the amounts shown as gross tum-over in the two returns for the two periods, the company claimed deduction of certain amounts, being the valuable consideration for the goods manufactured in Bjhar but sold, delivered and consumed outside, on the ground that in none of the transactions in respect of the said sums did property in the goods pass to the purchasers in Bihar. The appellant claimed further deductions on account of the railway freight paid by it. The Sales Tax Officer disallowed both the claims and added the amounts of sales tax realised by the ap~Jlant from its purchasers to the taxable turnover. The company appealed against the orders of assessment, but the Commissioner of Sales Tax dismissed its appeals. The Board of Revenue, in revision.
confirmed the orders of the Commissioner with certain modifications and remanded the matters ·to the Sales Tax Officer. On the appellant's application for reference of certain questions of law, the Board referred them to the High Court. One of them related to the legality of adding the Sales Tax to the tum-over and was answered in favour of the appellant and the respondent did not appeal. The other questions decided by the High Court against the appellant related to the vires ·of the Act and the validity of retrospective levy of sales tax under s. 4(1) of the Act. The appellant's contentions in the appeals were that the tax levied under s. 4(1) read with s. 2(g) second . proviso, cl.
(II), of the Act, was not,a sales tax within the meaning of Entry 48 in List II of the Seventh Schedule to the Government of India Act, 1935, but was in the nature of excise duty which a rrovincial legislature had no power to impose, that the theory o territorial nexus was inapplicable to sales tax and, in any case, there was no real or sufficient nexus in the present cases and that retrospective levy of the sales tax under s. 4(1) of the Act destroyed the indirect nature of the tax, thus making it a Bihar direct tax on the dealer which could not be passed on to the consumer: Held, (per Das, C. J. , Venkatarama Aiyar, S. K. Das and A. K. Sarkar, JJ. , Bose, J. dissenting), that the contentions raised on behalf of the appellant must be negatived. The provisions of s. 4(1) read withs. 2(g), second proviso, of the Bihar Sales Tax Act, as amended by the Bihar Sales Tax (Amendment) Act, 1948, (VI of 1949), were within the legislative competence of the Legislature of the Province of Bihar.
Both before and after the amendment, the word 'sale' as used in s. 4( 1) and as defined by s. 2(g) of the Act, meant the transfer of property in the goods sold. The second proviso added by the amending Act did not extend that meaning so as to include a contract of sale. What it actually did was to lay down certain circumstances in which a sale, although completed elsewhere, was to be deemed to have taken place in Bihar. Those circumstances did not constitute the sale, but only located the situs of the sale. Sales Tax Officer, Pilibhit v. Messrs. Budh Prakash Jai Prakash, [1955] 1 S. C. k. 243, distinguished. Nor was it correct to contend that the tax levied under s. 4 ( 1) read with s. 2(g) of the Act was in the nature of excise duty. Under cl. (ii) of the second proviso to s. 2(g) of the Act the producer or manufacturer became liable to pay the tax not because he produced or manufactured the goods but because he sold them. Province of Madras v. Boddu Paidanna and Sons. [1942] F. C. R.
90 and Governor General v. Province of Madras, (1945) L. R. 72 I. A. 91, referred to. There can be no doubt that the theory of territorial nexus does apply to sales tax legislation. Although sales tax can be levied only on a completed sale, this theory has its use in indicating the circumstanees in which the tax may be enforced in a particular case. One or more of the several ingredients of a sale may furnish the connection between the taxing State and the sale. State of Bombay v. United Motors (India) Ltd. , [1953] S. C. R. 1069, Poppatlal Shah v. The State of Madras, [1953] S. C. R. 677 and The State of Bombay v. R. M. D. Chamarbaugwala, [1957] S. C. R. 874, relied on. Bengal Immunity Co. Ltd. v. The State of Bihar, [1955] 2 S. C:R. 603, considered. Case law reviewed. As in a sale of goods, the goods must necessarily play an important part, the circumstances mentioned in the proviso to s.
2(g) of the Act, namely, the presence of the goods in Bihar at The the date of the agreement of sale or their production or manufacture there must be held to constitute a sufficient nexus between the taxing province aild the sale wherever that might take place. The Governor General v. Raleigh Investment, [1944] F. C. R. 229, relied on. Province. of Madras v. Boddu Paidanna and Sons, [1942] F. c.. R. 90, distinguished. It would not be correct to contend that the theory of nexus might lead to multiple taxation or obstruct inter-State trade. Article 286(2) of the Constitution and the relevant entries in the Legislative List are a complete safeguard to any such contingency. Although as a matter of economic theory, sales tax may be an indirect tax realisable from the consumer, it need not be legally so and is not so ui1. der the Bihar Sales Tax Act, 1947, which imposes the primary liability on the seller.
A buyer, moreover, is not bound to pay sales tax over and above the agreed sale price unless he is by contract bound to do so. There can, therefore, be no scope for the argument that the retrospective enforcement of the tax under s. 4 ( 1 ) of the Act could destroy the character of the taX or that it was beyond the legislative competence of the Bihar Legislature. Love v. Norman Wright (Builders) Ltd. , L. R. (1944) 1 K. R. 484, referred to. Per Bose, J. -Sales tax can be imposed only on the sale. lt is, therefore, wrong to look to the goods or the agreement to 3ell or any other elements that constitute a sale in order to impose the tax. A State can tax a sale of goods that takes place within its boundary. It has no power to tax extra-territorially, and since a completed sale can have only one situs no State Legislature can· be allowed to break up a sale into its component parts, which are separate and distinct from the sale itself, and by an application ) [1955) 2 S. C. R. 603.
found at page 708 where Bhagwati J. after referring to the earlier cases, observed : . "It is a m~ot point whether. this theory of t~rri-tonal connection or nexus which has been mamly applied in income-tax cases, is also applicable to sales The. tax legislation, the sphere of income-tax legislation and sales tax legislation being quite distinct.
Whereas in the case of income-tax legislation the tax is levied either on a person who is within the territory by exercising jurisdiction over him in personam or upon income which has accrued or arisen to him or is deemed to have or arisen to him or has been derived by him from sources within the territory and it is, therefore, germane to enquire whether any part of such income has accrued or arisen or has been derived from a source within the territory, in the case of sales tax legislation it is the sale or purchase of goods which is the subject-matter of taxation and it cannot be predicated that the sale or purchase takes place at one or more places where the necessary ingredients of sale happen to be located. The theory of territorial connection or nexus was not put to the test at any time prior to the enactment of the Constitution and it is not necessary also for us to give a definite pronounce-ment on the subject.
" Apart from the fact that the concluding words in the passage quoted above may be read as indicating that the observations were obiter, it appears to us to be too late in the day to contend that the theory of nexus does not apply to sales tax legislation at all. Indeed an examination of the decisions of this Court will clearly show that the applicability of the theory of nexus to sales tax legislation has been clearly re-cognised by this Court. In The State of Bombay v. The United Motors (India) Ltd. (1) this Court had to interpret the true meaning of the explanation to Art. 286(I)(a) of the Constitution. That explanation created a fiction locating the situs of a sale or purchase in the State in which the goods had actually been delivered as a result of such sale or purchase for the pur. pose of consumption in that (1) 11953] s. c. R. 1069, 1088.
State notwithstanding the fact that, under the general law relating to sale of goods, the property in the goods & had, by reason of such sale or purchase, passed in another State. This Court by a majority then held Bihor that in view of the fiction created by the explanation the sale which was in reality an inter-State sale became an intra-State sale and consequently the delivery and consuming State had the right to impose tax on that sale. It is true that that decision has been depart-ed from the Bengal Immunity Co. 's case (') on the question of the interpretation of Art. 286 of the Constitution, but on the point we are now discussing that . decision clearly implies a recognition of the applicability of the nexus theory to the imposition of sales tax. The observations of Patanjali Sastri C. J. on the question of nexus in that case cannot, therefore, be said to be unnecessary for the decision of that case. 2 In Poppat/al Shah v. The State of Madras ( ) Mukher-jea J.
delivering the unanimousjudgment of the Constitution Bench of this Court definitely applied the theory of nexus to sales tax legislation. Support for that conclusion was found directly in the decision of the Judicial Committee in Wallace Brothers and Co. Ltd. v. Commissioner of Income Tax, Bombay City (') which, it was said, had been applied by this Court to sales tax legislation in the United Motors' case('), but it is quite clear that the decision had, independently of the United Motors' case (') adopted the principle of Wallace Brothers and Co. 's case (') to sales tax legislation. In a recent case, The State of Bombay v. R. M. D. Chamarbaugwala ('), which was concerned with tax on cross-word competition, this Court applied the theory of nexus and upheld the legislative competency of the Bombay Legislature to impose tax on the gambling competitions. At page 901 this Court said : "The doctrine of territorial nexus is well established and there is no dispute as to the principles.
As enunciated by learned counsel for the petitioners, if there is a territorial nexus between the person sought to be charged alJ. d the State seeking to tax him the (1) [1955) • S. C. R. 6o3. (•) [1953) S. C. R. 677-taxing statute may be upheld. Sufficiency of the 19ss territorial connection involve a consideration of two TM i & .. (3) [1948] F. C. R. I. (4) [1948] $. C. R. 1069, 1oll8. (iii [•9a7l s. c. R. 874, gOJ. 111 elements, namely, (a) the connection must be real and s ,, °c:. '~~d. 1 1 not illusory and (b) the liability sought to be imposed v. • must be pertinent to that connection. It is conceded Th•StateofBihar that it is of no importance on the question of validity that the liability imposed is or may be altogether dis- Dai c. J. proportionate to the territorial connection. In other words, if the connection is sufficient in the sense mentioned above, the extent -or such connection affects merely the· policy and not the validity of the legislation.
" ·Applying these principles to the facts of that case this Court came to the conclusion that they constituted sufficient territorial nexus which entitled the State of Bombay to impose a tax on the gambling that took place within its boundaries and that the law could not be struck down on the ground of extra-territoriality. It is not necessary for us on this occasion to lay down any broad proposition as to ·whether the theory of nexus, as a principle of legislation, is applicable to all kinds of legislation. It will be enough, for disposing of the point now under consideration, to say that this Court has found no apparent reason to confine its application to income-tax legislation but has extended it to sales tax and to tax on gambling and that we see no cogent reason why the nexus theory should not be applied to sales tax legislation.
The learned Attorney General submits that the theory of nexus cannot be applied to sales tax legislation because such legisJation is concerned with a tax on the transaction of sale, that is to say, a completed sale and to break up a sale into its component parts and to take one or more of such parts and to apply the theory to it will mean that the State will be entitled to impose a tax on one or more of the ingredients or constituent elements of the transaction of sale which by itself or themselves will not amoup. t to a ~ale. This argument overlooks the fact that the provisions of the sales tax legislation we are consider-ing limit its charging section to "sale". In order to attract the charging section there must be a completed sale involving the transfer of property in the goods sold from the seller to the buyer. The nexus theory & does not impose the tax.
It only indicates the circumstance in which a tax imposed by an act of the Bihar Legislature may be enfo~ced in a particular ca~e and unless eventually there 1s a concluded sale m ihe sense of passing of the property in the goods no tax liability attaches under the Act. One or more of the several ingredients constituting a sale only furnished the connection between the taxing State and the "sale". The learned Attorney General also said that one and the same transaction of sale may be taxed by different States by applying the nexus theory and there will be multiple taxation which will obstruct the free flow of inter-State trade. There is no force in this argument, for Art. 286(2) of the Constitution, as it stood originally, was a complete safeguard against such eventuality and after the amendment of that Article and the relevant entries in the Legislative List such contingency will not arise.
In our opinion the arguments advanced by the learned Attorney General on this point cannot be accepted. Re. point No. 3: The learned Attorney General next contends that in any case the nexus must be real and pertinent to the subject-matter of taxation. He contends that the presence of the goods in Bihar referred to in the old second proviso, which is reproduced in cl. (i) of the second proviso as amended, is of no con-sequence. The production or manufacture, according to him, has no connection with and never enters into the transactions of sale. He relies on the observations of Chief Justice Gwyer in Boddu Paidanna's case('), at page 102, namely, that "a sale had no necessary connection with manufacture or production. " That observation was made by the learned Chief Justice in order to emphasise the fact that the tax levied on the first sale by the manufacturer or producer was a tax imposed on him qua seller and not qua manufacturer or producer.
The question whether the fact of production or manufacture of goods may legitimately form. a nexus between the transaction of sale and the taxing (1) [1942] F. C. R. go. State was not in issue in that case at all. It is unnecessary in this case to lay down any hard and fast test as to the sufficiency of nexus which will enable a State to impose a tax or to enumerate the instances of such connection. For the purpose of the present case it is sufficient to state that in a sale of goods the goods must of necessity play an important part, for it is the goods in which, as a result of the sale, the property will pass. In our view the presence of the goods at the date of the agreement for sale in the taxing State or the production or manufacture in that State of goods the property wherein eventually passed as a result of the sale wherever that might have taken place, constituted a sufficient nexus between the taxing State and the sale.
In the first case the goods are actually within the State at the date of the agreement for sale and the property in those goods will generally pass within the State when they are ascertained by appropriation by the seller with the assent of the purchaser and delivered to the purchaser or ·his agent. Even if the property in those goods passes outside. the State the ultimate sale rela~es to those very goods. In the second case the goods, wherein the title passes eventually outside the State, are produced or manufactured in Bihar and the sale wherever that takes place is by the same person who produced or manufactured the same in Bihar. The producer or manufa~turer gets his sale price in respect of goods which were in Bihar at the date when the important event of agreement for ~ale was made. or which were produced or manufactured in Bihar. These are relevent facts on which the State could well fasten its tai. If the facts in the Raleigh Investment Co.
's ('), were sufficient nexus there is no reason why the facts mentioned in the proviso should not also be sufficient. Whatever else may or may not constitute a sufficient nexus, we are of opinion that the two cases with which we are concerned in this case are sufficient to do so. · . Re. point No. 5 : The argument on this point is that sales tax is an indirect tax on the consumer. The (·I) [1944) F. C. R. 229. idea is that the seller will pass it on to his purchaser and collect it from them. If that is the nature of the sales tax th~n, urges the learne~ Attorney General, it cannot be imposed retrospectively after the sale Bihar transaction ·has been concluded by the passing of title from the seller to the buyer, for it cannot, at that stage, be passed on to the purchaser. According to him the seller collects the sales tax from the purchaser on the occasion of the sale.
Once that time· goes past, the seller loses the chance of realising it from the purchaser and if it cannot be realised from the purchaser, it cannot be called sales tax. In oui: judgment this argument is not sound. From the point of view of the economist and as an economic theory, sales tax may be an indirect tax on the consumers, but legally it need not be so. Under the 1947 Act the primary liability to pay the sales tax, so far as the State is concerned, is on the seller. Indeed before the amendment of the 1947 Act by the amending Act the sellers had no authority to collect the sales tax as such from the purchaser. The seller could undoubtedly have put· up the price so as to include the sales tax; which he would have to pay but he could not realise any sales tax as such from the plirchaser. That circumstance could not prevent the sales tax imposed on the seller to be any the less sales tax on the sale of goods.
The circumstance that the 1947 Act, after the amendment, permitted the seller who was a registered dealer to collect the sales tax as a tax from the purchaser does not do away with the primary liability of the seller to pay the sales tax. This is further made clear by the fact that the registered dealer need not, if he so pleases or chooses, collect the tax from the purchaser and sometimes by reason of competition with other registered dealers he may find it profitable to sell his goods and to retain his old customers even at the sacrifice of the sales tax. This also makes it clear that the sales tax need not be passed on to the purchasers and this fact does not alter the real nature 1 of the tax which, by the express provisions of the law, is cast upon the seller. The buyer is under no liability to pay sales tax in addition to the agreed sale price unless the contract specifically provides otherwise. See Love v. Norman Wright (Builders) Ltd. (').
If that be the true view of sales tax then the Bihar TM Legislature acting within its own legislative field had the powers of a sovereign legislature and could make The its law prospectively as well as retrospectively. We do not thinlC that there is any substance in this con-tention either. For reasons stated above none of the contentions urged by the learned Attorney General in support of these appeals can be sustained. The result, therefore, is that these appeals must be dismissed with costs. BOSE J. -,. -With great respect I cannot agree. It will not be necessary to elaborate my point of dis-agreement at length because this is pre-Constitution legislation and much of what we decide in this case will pot affect . post-Constitution Acts. Put very shortly, my view is this. First, a State can only impose a tax on the sale of goods. It has no power to ta,x extra territorially, therefore it can only tax sales that occur in the State itself. With great respect I feel .
it is fallacious to look to the goods, or to the elenients that constitute a sale, because the power to tax is limited to 'the sale and the tax is not . on the goods ·or· on the agreement fo sell or on the price as such but only' on . the sale. Therefore, unless the sale itself takes place in the State, the State cannot tax. That brings me to the next point, the situs of a sale. Now I know that this is a matter on which many . different ,views are possible but what is clear to me is that a sale cannot have more than one situs. It is not a mystical entity that can be one in many and many in one at one and the same time, here, there and everywhere all at once : nor is it a puckish elf that pops up now here, now there and next everywhere; It is a very mundane business transaction, of the earth, earthy. Itcan have only one existence ai;id pne situs. Opinions may differ on where that is and how.
it is to be determined, but it is our duty, as the supreme authority on the law of the land, to choose (1) L. R. (1944) I K. B. 484. one of those . many views and say that that is the law of out land and that in India the situs is determined in this way or that and, having determined it, make it uniform for the whole country. Bthar I am conscious that the selection must be arbitrary, but for all that, it must be made. Left to myself, I would have preferred Cheshire's view about the proper law of the contract set out by him in Chapter VITI of his book on Private International Law, 4th edition. I referred to this in The Delhi Cloth and General Mills Co. Lt. d. v. Harnam _Singh ('). I qoute him again : "The proper law is the law of the country in which the contract is localised. Its localisation will be indicated by what may be called the grouping of its element. s as reflected in its formation and in its terms.
The country in which its elements are most densely grouped will represent its natural seat". He is not dealing with this question. He is dealing with International Law and the difficulties that arise in dealing with conti'acts whose elements are grouped in different States with different, and often conflicting, laws. He is developing the theme that for any one contract there should be but one law to govern it in all its stages and that the most logical conclusion is to select the law of the country in which the contract has its natural seat. But whether his view is accepted or any of the others that he discusses, he stresses the need for one objective rule and contends strongly that tlie choice should not be left to the parties to the deal, even as I say that it should not be left to the States. He quotes an American Judge, at page 203 of his book, who says that - "Some law must impose.
the obligation, and the parties have nothing whatsoever to do with that, no more than with whether their acts are torts or crimes. " Now none of that is of immediate application here but it contains the germ of an idea and points to the embarrassment and folly of letting differing laws run amuck in governing a single transaction. Followipg up that thought I would say that we are dealing here with a Constitution Act that speaks with one voice ( ) [1955] • S. C. R. 402, 418. and authority throughout the land. It tells the various States, as one day some international ·voice that will 11 rule tpe world will say_ to the peoples i~ it, "you may 11:e/~:. :';~/· do this and may not do that"· and "this" and "that" ' mean, but one. thing everywhere. One writ runs The throughout the land and it has but' one meaning and . one voice. "When I say that you may only legislate for your.
own territory and that you may tax certain sales, you must ·realise that the meaning that I give to 'sale' is the meaning that my Supreme Court shall give to it and that it cannot mean differing things in different areas; and you must realise that the only sales that you may tax are the ones that lie in your ·own territory. My Supreme Court shall determine where a sale is. situated and once that is determined it cannot be situated any where else. If it does not happen to be in your territory you cannot tax it. " Our pres~nt Constitution ~id not adopt Cheshire's view. It made another choice. In the old Explanation to Art. 286 (now repealed). it selected the place where the goods are actually delivered, as a direct result of the sale or. purchase,·· as the situs. Well, so be it. That is as good as any other and I would have been as happy to select that as any of the other possi-bilities.
But what I do most strongly press is that a Constitution Act canriot be allowed to speak with different voices in different parts ·of the land and that a mundane business concept well known and well understood cannot be. given an ethereal omnipresent quality that enables a horde of hungry hawks to swoop down and devour it simultaneously ·all over the land : "some sale; some hawks" as Winston Churchill would say. I would therefore reject the nexus theory in so far as it means that any one sale can have existence and entity simultaneously in many different places·. The States may tax the sale but may not disintegrate it and, under the guise of taxing the sale in truth and in fact, tax its various elements,. one its head and one its tail, one its entrails and one its limbs by a legislative fiction that deems that the whole is within its claws simply because, after tearing it apart, it finds a hand or a foot or a heart or a liver still quivering in its grasp.
Nexus, of course, there must be but nexus of & the entire entity that is called a sale, wherever lt is deemed to be situate. Fiction again. Of course, it is Bihar fiction, but it is a fiction as to situs imposed by the Constitution Act and by the Supreme Court that speaks for it in these matters and only one fiction, not a dozen little ones. My point is simple. If you are allowed to tax a dog it must be within the -territorial limits of your taxable jurisdiction. You cannot tax it if it is born elsewhere and remains there simply because its mother was with you at some point of time during the period of gesta-tion. Equally, after birth, you cannot tax it simply because its tail is cut off (as is often done in the case of certain breeds) and sent back to the fond owner, who lives in your jurisdiction, in a bottle of spirits, or clippirigs of its hair. .
There is a nexus of sorts in both cases but the fallacy lies in thinking that the entity is with you just because a· part that is quite different from the whole was once there. So with a sale of a motor car started and concluded wholly and exclu-sively in New York or London or Timbuctoo. You cannot tax that sale just because the vendor lives in Madras, even if the motor car is brought th\:re arid even assuming there is no bar on international sales, for the simple reason that what you are entitled to tax is the sale, and neither the owner nor the car, therefore unless the sale is situate in your territory, there is no real nexus. And once it is determined objectively by the Constitution Act or in Supreme C<iurt how and where the sale is situate, its situs is fixed and cannot be changed thereafter by a succession of State legislatures each claiming a different situs by the convenient fiction of deeming. The only question is whether it is too late in the day to take this view .
because of our previous decisions and those of the Federal Court. I say not, for though there is a consensus of opinion that there must be a territorial nexus and that it must not be illusory, no decision that I _know of says that when you are given the right to tax a certain thing which is a composite entity, quite separate and distinct from the various elements of which it is composed, you may tear that whole apart and seize on some element that is quite r;~e;;~/'~~/' a different thing from that which you are entitled to tax and hold that the taxable entity is in your State TM simply because at some relevant point ·or time one of the ingredients that went to make up the whole but which is a separate and distinct thing from the whole, as diff~rent from it as chalk is frdm cheese, happened to be within your clutches. I do not intend to ana-lyse the cases on this point because it is pointless to pursue a matter that will only be of academic inter~st.
All I will do therefore is to say that the question of nexus has been referred to in the following cases and that none of them reaches. a decision on this particular point. These cases are Governor-General in Council v .. 1 Raleigh Investment Co. , Ltd. ( ), A. H. Wadia v. Commissioner of Income-tax, Bombay CZ), Poppatlal Shah v. The State of Madras (3), State of Trm•ancore-. 4 Cochin v. Shanmugha Vilas Cashew Nut Factory ( ), and The Bengal Immunity Co. , Ltd. v. The State of Bihar ('). I would allow the appeals. ORDER OF THE COURT In view of the opinion of the majority, the appeals are dismissed with costs. A. ppea/J diJmissed. (1) (1944] F. C. R. 229, 247, 253. (2) [1948] F. C. R. 121, 153, 154, 165. (3) [1953] S. C. R. 677. (4) (1954) S. C. R. 53, 101. (5) [1955] 2 s. c. R. 003, 708, 768, 769.
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