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PETITIONER: TOBACCO MANUFACTURERS (INDIA) LTD.

       Vs.

RESPONDENT: THE COMMISSIONER OF SALES-TAX, BIHAR, PATNA.

DATE OF JUDGMENT: 26/10/1960

BENCH: AYYANGAR, N. RAJAGOPALA BENCH: AYYANGAR, N. RAJAGOPALA DAS, S.K. HIDAYATULLAH, M. GUPTA, K.C. DAS SHAH, J.C.

CITATION:  1961 AIR  402            1961 SCR  (2) 106  CITATOR INFO :  RF         1966 SC 376  (6)

ACT: Sales Tax-Sale-Goods delivered outside State for consumption in   the  State  of  first  delivery-Goods   delivered   for consumption in other States-Liability to tax-Constitution of India, Art. 286(1)(a) Bihar Sales Tax Act. 107

HEADNOTE: The  appellants  who were manufacturers  of  cigarettes  and tobacco  in the State of Bihar contested the levy of  sales- tax  on  sales effected by them during the  financial  years 1949-5o and 1950-51 on the ground that as a direct result of every  sale  effected  by  them  the  goods  concerned  were delivered  outside the State of Bihar and  were,  therefore, exempted  from  tax liability under Art.  286(i)(a)  of  the Constitution.  Both the Superintendent of sales-tax and  the Deputy  Commissioner  of  sales-tax,  Bihar,  overruled  the objection of the appellants, and following a previous ruling of  the  Board of Revenue of Bengal in a case known  as  the Bengal  Timber Case (61 of 1952) held the appellants  liable to  pay the tax.  The appellants paid the tax  demanded  but filed  an application in revision to the Board  of  Revenue, claiming  a constitutional exemption from tax on every  sale effected  by them as a result of which goods were  delivered outside  the  State of Bihar-whether the  delivery  was  for consumption  in  the State of first delivery  or  not.   The Board passed the following order on the revision petition. "  As regards the admitted despatches of the  goods  outside the   State   after  the  26th  January,  1950,   when   the Constitution  came into force, the learned lower  court  has been  guided  by  the decision of the Board  in  the  Bengal Timber Case (No. 61 of 1952).  But this ruling of the  Board stands superseded by the subsequent decision of the  Supreme Court in the United Motors Case According to the decision of the  Supreme Court, no tax could be levied on despatches  to the  places outside the state after the 26th January,  1950, and  on this point the petitions are allowed, and the  sales

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tax  officer  directed  to recalculate  the  amount  of  tax payable by the assessee ". The appellants taking the above order to be in their  favour claimed refund of the tax already paid by them and the sales tax authorities contested the position and claimed that they were bound to refund the tax only on those sales wherein the goods  were delivered outside the State for  consumption  in the  State  of first delivery.   The  department  thereafter sought clarification of the above order.  The Board  refused to  clarify or explain its order and passed an order  saying that " no further clarification was really required in  view of  the  specific reference to the judgment of  the  Supreme Court  in  the  United  Motors Case  ".  Thereafter  as  the authorities  still refused to refund the balance of the  tax the appellants filed two applications in the High Court  for the  issue of a writ of mandamus to compel the refund.   The High  Court  held that the Board’s decision  that  sales  in which  the  goods  were  delivered  outside  the  State  for consumption, not in the State of first delivery but in other States  were also exempted from tax, was wrong and that  the appellants  were  not  entitled to a writ  of  mandamus  for enforcing a wrong order.  On appeal by special leave, Held, that the proper construction of the Board’s orders was that the sales tax officer was directed to decide the relief that 108 should   be   given  to  the  assessee  on   the   officers’ interpretation  of the decision of this Court in the  United Motors Case.  The Board did not determine the effect of that judgment  and  did not decide that every sale in  which  the goods were delivered outside the State of Bihar was exempted from liability to tax. The principle that a subordinate tribunal should not  refuse to  carry  out  the directions of a  superior  tribunal  was therefore not applicable to the instant case. Bhopal  Sugar Mills v. Commissioner of Income-tax, [1961]  1 S.C.R. 474, held inapplicable. The  United Motors Case merely decided that sales  in  which goods  were delivered outside the State for  consumption  in the State of first delivery would fall under the Explanation to  Art. 286(1) of the Constitution and would  therefore  be exempted from tax liability, but it did not deal with  other sales   in   which  the  goods  thus  delivered   were   for consumption, not in the State of first delivery but in other states.   Such  sales  would on the order of  the  Board  of Revenue which was binding on the appellant be liable to  tax in  accordance  with the previous decision of the  Board  of Revenue in the Bengal Timber Case. State  of  Bombay v. United Motors (India)  Ltd.  and  Ors., [1953] S.C.R. 1069, explained and applied. Board of Revenue of the State in the Bengal Timber Case,  61 of 1952, referred to.

JUDGMENT: CIVIL  APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil, Appeals Nos.  202  and 203 of 1958. Appeals from the judgment and decree dated October 5,  1956, of  the Patna High Court in Misc.  Judicial Cases  Nos.  330 and 331 of 1955. K.   D.  Chatterjee, S. N. Andley and J. B. Dadachanji,  for the appellants. D. P. Singh, for the respondents. 1960.  October 26.  The Judgment of the Court was  delivered

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by AYYANGAR J.-These two appeals are from a common judgment  of the  High  Court  of Patna dated October  5,  1956,  in  two petitions  under Art. 226 of the Constitution and have  been filed  pursuant to a certificate granted by the  High  Court under Art. 132. The  Tobacco Manufacturers (India) Ltd., the  appellants  in the above appeals are an incorporated company  manufacturing cigarettes  and tobacco in their factory at Monghyr  in  the State of Bihar, and these 109 appeals  are  concerned  with the legality of  the  levy  of sales-tax under the Bihar Sales Tax Act (hereafter  referred to  as  the  Act)  on the appellants  in  respect  of  sales effected  during  the financial years 1949-50 and  1950  51. The  point urged in these appeals is a very narrow  one  and relates  to the proper construction to be placed on  certain orders  of the Board of Revenue passed in regard to the  tax properly leviable for these two years. The  facts  relevant  to this point are  briefly  these  The assessment  of  the  appellants  for  both  the  years   was completed  by the Superintendent of Sales Tax,  Monghyr,  on May  7, 1952, and the total tax liability was determined  in the sum of Rs. 6,44,940-2-6 and Rs. 7,46,876-1-3 for the two assessment  years 1950-51 and 1951-52 respectively.   Before the  assessing  officer, the appellants contended  that  all sales effected by them as a direct result of which the goods were delivered outside the State of Bihar were exempted from tax  liability  under Art. 286(1)(a)  of  the  Constitution. This  objection  was overruled, the reason  assigned  being, that the sales were completed in Bihar, and that the  entire turnover  of the appellants was therefore subjected  to  tax under the Act.  In taking this view the assessing  authority followed  a previous ruling of the Board of Revenue  of  the State  in  the  Bengal Timber case (Case 61  of  1952).   An appeal  preferred to the Deputy Commissioner of  Sales  Tax, Bihar,  by the appellants was dismissed on October 8,  1952, on the same grounds. The appellants paid the tax demanded for both the years  and invoked the revisional jurisdiction of the Board of Revenue. In their petitions to the Board the appellants pointed  out, that  the sales of goods delivered for  consumption  outside the  State  of Bihar which involved a tax liability  of  Rs. 1,23,813-0-2  in the earlier year and Rs.  7,10,185-12-0  in the later year were made up of two types of transactions: (a)  those  in  which  the goods  thus  delivered  were  for consumption  in  the  State  of  first  delivery  or   first destination, (b)  those in which the goods thus delivered were 110 for consumption, not in the State of first delivery but  in. other States. (These  two  classes  would be  referred  to  hereafter  for convenience  as  typo (a) and type (b)  respectively).   The appellants  claimed that on the proper construction of  Art. 286(1) & (2) they were entitled to have both these types  of sales excluded from their taxable turnover.  By the date  of the hearing of these petitions by the revisional  authority, this  Court had rendered the decision in State of Bombay  v. United  Motors  (India) Ltd. and Others (1)  expounding  the scope  of the explanation to Art. 286(1)(a) and  its  inter- relation  to the exemption under Art. 286(2), and  naturally this decision was brought to the attention of the member  of the  Board  at the hearing.  Without examining  whether  the decision  cited did or did not cover both the two (a) &  (b)

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types of sales effected by the appellants, the Board  passed on August 28, 1953, a laconic order in these terms: "The two points urged in this Court were among those  points urged in the Lower Court and they are- (i)  No tax should have been levied on the Company’s canteen sales. (ii) that  despatches outside the State for  consumption  in other States should not have been taxed for the period after the Constitution came into force. As  regards the admitted despatches of goods out.  side  the State  after the 26th January, 1950, when  the  Constitution came into force, the learned Lower Court has been guided  by the  decision of the Board in the Bengal Timber  case  (Case No.  61  of  1952).  But this ruling  of  the  Board  stands superseded  by the subsequent decision of the Supreme  Court in  the United Motor’s case,.  According to the decision  of the Supreme Court, no tax can be levied on despatches to the places outside the State after the 26th January, 1950 and on this point the petition are allowed, and the (1)  [1953] S.C.R. 1069. 111 sales-tax officer directed to recalculate the amount of  tax payable by the assessee ". Apparently  the appellants understood this order as  meaning that all sales, whereunder goods were delivered outside  the State, whether or not for consumption in the State of  first delivery (i.e., both types (a)&  (b)) were exempted from the tax  levy.   The sales-tax authorities,  however,  took  the order to mean that only those sales in which deliveries were made outside the State for consumption in the State of first destination,  i. e., those of type (a) were intended  to  be exempted,  and these rival interpretations were put  forward in the correspondence that passed between the appellants and the   sales-tax   authorities.   The  appellants   made   an application for the refund of the amount of tax attributable to  all the sales under which goods were  delivered  outside the  State,  but  the  tax  authorities  sticking  to  their interpretation  of  the  order of the  Board  and  of  their interpretation  of the decision of this Court in the  United Motors  case  (1) refunded the tax collected on  the  sales falling within type (a) but refused to refund Rs. 20,923-15- 2 for the 1st year and Rs. 1,29,823-5.0 for the later  year- these  amounts  representing the tax on sales of  type  (b). The appellants however persisted in pressing their claim for the refund of these amounts also. In this state of affairs, the State of Bihar moved the Board of Revenue to review its order dated August 28, 1953, or  at any rate clarify it so as to confine its operation to  sales falling within type (a), urging that this would bring it  in accord with the interpretation of Art. 286(1) by this  Court in  the United Motors case (1).  The appellants objected  to the  jurisdiction  of  the Board of Revenue  to  review  its previous  decision  and  on April 25, 1955,  it  passed  the following order : "  These are what appear to be two  miscellaneous  petitions filed  on  behalf of the State of.   Bihar  seeking  certain clarifications  regarding the interpretation of the  Board’s order  dated  28-8-1953 in Cases Nos. 514  of  1952.   After argument was heard it was conceded (1)  [1953] S.C.R. 1069. 112 by both parties that there is no provision in the Act  under which the parties concerned may move the court to clarify or explain the order passed, this function essentially being  a matter of legal advice.  It was also agreed that no  further

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clarification  was really required in view of  the  specific reference to the judgment of the Supreme Court in the United Motor’s case.  The petitions are, therefore, rejected." If the order of the Board dated August 28, 1953, was laconic and ambiguous, the later order dated April 25, 1955, was  if anything more obscure.  The appellants, however,  considered it  an  order in their favour, because the petition  by  the State  for clarification of the first order on the lines  of the  interpretation put upon it by the tax  authorities  had been dismissed, and when the refusal to refund the two  sums of  tax  referred to earlier was continued, they  filed  two petitions  in the High Court of Patna under Art. 226 of  the Constitution  for the issue of writs of mandamus  to  compel the refund of the tax on the principal ground that a duty to do  so  had  been  imposed by the orders  of  the  Board  of Revenue, though the petition made an incidental reference to the  appellants  being entitled to such refund on  a  proper construction of Art. 286(1) & (2) of the Constitution,  even apart from the order of the Board of Revenue. The  learned  Judges of the High Court however in  the  main considered  the question whether on a proper  interpretation of  the relevant Articles of the Constitution,  sales  under which goods were delivered outside Bihar but for consumption not  in  the State of first delivery, were exempt  from  tax under the Bihar Sales Tax Act and decided the point  against the  appellants.   They next dealt with  the  central  point urged  in the petitions, viz., that the Board of Revenue  by its order dated August 28, 1953, had allowed the appellant’s revision  in regard to " the second point "  which  included sales  of all categories whether or not for the  purpose  of consumption in the State of first destination outside Bihar, and  directed the Sales-tax Officer to recompute the tax  by allowing this exemption, and that the officer was  therefore statutorily bound to 113 give effect to the order of the Board, be the same right  or wrong, particularly when the Board refused to vary or modify it so as to exclude particular types of sales from the scope of  the  exemption  when  moved  to  do  so  by  the   State Government.  In regard to this point after stating that  the orders  of the Board of Revenue were ambiguous, the  learned Judges  proceeded to answer the question on  the  assumption that  the  Board  of Revenue had  directed  the  officer  to recompute  the tax on the basis that all the outside  sales- both the (a) and the (b) types were exempted from liability. The  learned Judges then pointed out that the order  of  the Board  would be clearly erroneous in regard to the (b)  type sales-and  that the petitioner in a writ of  mandamus  could not insist on a manifestly wrong order being enforced.   The petitions were therefore dismissed. The  appellants applied to the High Court  for  certificates under  Arts. 132 and 133, but the learned Judges  granted  a certificate  under Art. 132 alone and it is on the  strength of these certificates that the appeals are before us. The principal point that Mr. Chatterjee, learned Counsel for the appellants, argued before us related to the duty of  the tax  authorities to obey the orders of the Board of  Revenue and  give  effect to them, and he submitted  that  the  High Court erred in denying his clients the relief of mandamus on the  ground  that that order was erroneous.  In  support  of this  argument learned Counsel sought reliance on  a  recent decision  of  this  Court in Bhopal  Sugar  Mills  V.   Com- missioner  of Income-tax (1) in which it was held that  when an  order was made by a superior tribunal (in that case  the Income-tax  Appellate  Tribunal)  directing  the  Income-tax

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Officer to compute the income of an assessee on a particular basis  and  that  order had become  final,  the  subordinate officer had no right to disregard the direction, because  it was  wrong  and that the High Court when approached  by  the assessee for the issue of a writ of mandamus, was bound to (1) [1961] 1 S.C. R 474 15 114 enforce  the final order of the superior Tribunal and  could not  refuse to do so because it considered the order of  the Tribunal to be wrong.  This Court pointed out that when  the order  which  the Tribunal had jurisdiction to  pass  became final, it bound all parties to it and its correctness  could not be challenged collaterally in proceedings for  enforcing that  order.   The  attempt  of  learned  Counsel  for   the appellants  was to bring this case within the scope  of  the above ruling. The ratio of this decision is to be found in this passage: "  By that order the respondent virtually refused  to  carry out  the directions which a superior tribunal had  given  to him  in  exercise of its appellate powers in respect  of  an order of assessment made by him.  Such refusal is in  effect a  denial of justice, and is furthermore destructive of  one of  the  basic principles in the administration  of  justice based as it is in this country on a hierarchy of courts.  If a subordinate tribunal refuses to carry out directions given to  it  by  a  superior tribunal  in  the  exercise  of  its appellate   powers,  the  result  will  be  chaos   in   the administration  of justice and we have indeed found it  very difficult  to appreciate the process of reasoning  by  which the  learned Judicial Commissioner while roundly  condemning the  respondent for refusing to carry out the directions  of the  superior tribunal, yet held that no manifest  injustice resulted from such refusal." To  attract the principle thus enunciated, it  is  necessary that there should be an order of a superior tribunal  clear, certain  and  definite  in  its terms,  and  with.  out  any ambiguity, to which the subordinate authority or officer  to whom it is addressed, could give effect.  We are clearly  of the  opinion that the decision referred to cannot  apply  to the situation in the present case. Taking the earlier order of the Board first-it is to put  it at the mildest ambiguous.  The Board referred to the  Bengal Timber case which had been followed by the lower authorities in  disallowing the appellants’ claim to exemption  to  both the (a) and (b) type sales,involving out of State deliver. A reference was then 115 made to the decision of this Court in the State of Bombay v. United Motors (India) Ltd. and others (1) as superseding the previous decision of the Board, adding that according to the decision of this Court no tax could be levied on  despatches outside the State after the 26th January, 1950, and on  that point  the petitions were allowed.  It will be noticed  that the  member did not set out the precise extent to which  the ruling of this Court superseded the previous decision of the Board, and this was left in a state of uncertainty.  It  was suggested  by  learned Counsel for the appellants  that  Mr. Bakshi, the member of the Board, drew no distinction between sales  of type (a) or (b), and bad included both of them  as falling within a single category of sales in which  delivery had  taken place outside the State for consumption in  other States,  and for that reason we should hold that the  member had  rightly or wrongly treated the decision in  the  United Motors’  case  as  applicable to all such  sales.   We  find

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ourselves unable to agree in this construction of the order. We  cannot  presume  that  Mr. Bakshi  did  not  peruse  the judgment  in the United Motors’ case when he referred to  it in his order, nor that he did not acquaint himself with  the terms   of  the  Explanation  to  Art.  286(1)(a)   of   the Constitution,  the  scope  and  significance  of  which  was analysed  and  elaborated in that decision.  We  are  rather inclined  to  agree with the construction which  the  member himself put on this order in April, 1955, that he left it to the  Sales-tax Officer to decide for himself the  relief  to which  the  appellants  were  entitled  on  that   officer’s interpretation  of  the judgment of this Court.  It  may  be that this was not a satisfactory method of disposing of  the revision petition-leaving the point which arose for decision by the member of the Board of Revenue, to be decided by  the Sales-tax  Officer, but we are now only concerned  with  the simple question whether Mr. Bakshi had or had not determined the true scope and effect of the judgment of this Court  and decided  it as meaning that all sales as a result  of  which goods were delivered outside the State (1)  [1953] S.C.R. 1069. 116 of Bihar were within the Explanation and so were exempt from the  tax  liability.  Notwithstanding the  cryptic  language used  by  the  Member of the Board, we are  clearly  of  the opinion  that  he  did not intend to decide  this  point  in favour  of  the appellants in the  manner contended  for  by them. It  is now common ground that when the Board of Revenue  was approached by the State Government to review or clarify this order,  Mr.  Bakshi,  by his order  dated  April  25,  1955, expressed  himself  as having decided earlier  that  he  had directed  the  sales-tax  officer  to  give  effect  to  the judgment  of  this Court in the United Motors case  and  had done  nothing further.  Learned Counsel for  the  appellants strongly  pressed  before us that the member  of  the  Board having accepted the preliminary objection that there was  no provision  in  the  Bihar Sales-tax Act  by  which  a  party concerned  might  move the Board to clarify or  explain  the order, he had no jurisdiction to effect any clarification of his  previous order and that whatever was said by the  Board on  the  second  occasion could not be held  to  modify  the earlier  order or deny the appellants such benefits as  were granted  to  them by the earlier order of August  28,  1953. But  as  against this, it has to be noted  that  before  the Board  both the parties, i.e., the State Government as  well as  the appellants-agreed that clarification was not  needed because  " of the specific reference to the judgment of  the Supreme  Court  in  the  United  Motors  case  ".  As   this observation was embodied in the later order with the consent of both the parties, we consider that it is too late now for the  appellants  to raise any technical  objection  to  this sentence  being given effect to.  In view, however,  of  the conclusion  that we have reached as to the  construction  of the  earlier  order of August, 1953, it  is  unnecessary  to pursue the matter any further. If, therefore, as a result of the order or orders passed  by the Board, the sales-tax officer was directed to give effect to the judgment of this Court in the United Motors case,  it followed that the interpretation of the judgment was left to that  officer.  We have, already pointed out that to such  a situation the principle of 117 the  decision  of  this  Court  in  Bhopal  Sugar  Mills  v. Commissioner  of Income Tax (1) is inapplicable.   We  might

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also  point  out that even if the decision applied  and  the High Court issued an order in the nature of mandamus to  the sales-tax  officer,  it  could  only  take  the  form  of  a direction  to  effect the reassessment in the light  of  the decision in the United Motors case (2)-an order which  would leave the appellants in the same position in which they  now find themselves without such an order by the High Court. The  next question for consideration is whether on a  proper construction  of the decision in the United Motors case  (2) the  exclusion of type (b) sales from those  exempted  under Art. 286(1) was erroneous.  Mr. Chatterjee, learned  Counsel for  the appellants sought to establish that this Court  had decided  in  the United Motors case three points:  (1)  that sales  as a result of which goods were delivered in a  State for  consumption  in  such State, i.e.,  the  sales  falling within  the  Explanation  to Art.  286(1)  were  fictionally inside that State for all purposes and so within the  taxing power  of the State in which such delivery took  place,  (2) that  sales which by the fiction created by the  Explanation were inside a particular State, were " outside "  all  other States,  and  so  exempt from tax levy  by  all  such  other States,  (3) that further and beyond’ this, all sales  which did  not satisfy the terms of the Explanation but  in  which goods were delivered outside the State in which title passed were " outside sales " over which no State would have  power to  levy a tax.  In other words, the argument was that  this Court  had  laid  down that every sale which was  not  "  an Explanation  sale  " and therefore not an "  inside  sale  " within  a  particular State was an " outside sale"  for  all States  and therefore exempt from the levy of  sales-tax  by every State in India.  In support of this submission learned Counsel  relied on a passage in the judgment of the  learned Chief Justice at page 1081 of the Re. port which ran: "...............  The  authors of the  Constitution  had  to devise a formula of restrictions to be imposed on the State- power of taxing sales or purchases involving (1) [1961] 1 S.C.R 474  (2) [1953] S.C.R 1069 118 inter-State  elements  which  would  avoid  the  doubts  and difficulties  arising out of the imposition of  salestax  on the  same transaction by several Provincial Legislatures  in the  country  before the commencement of  the  Constitution. This they did by enacting Clause (1)(a) with the Explanation and clause (2) of Article 286.  Clause (1)(a) prohibits  the taxation of all sales or purchases which take place  outside the  State  but a localised sale is a  troublesome  concept, for, a sale is a composite transaction involving as it  does several  elements  such as agreement to  sell,  transfer  of ownership,  payment of the price, delivery of the goods  and so    forth,   which   may   take   place    at    different places.....................  To  solve  the  difficulty   an easily  applicable test for determining what is  an  outside sale had to be formulated, and that is what, in our opinion, the Explanation was intended to do.  It provides by means of a  legal fiction that the State in which the goods  sold  or purchased are actually delivered for consumption therein  is the State in which the sale or purchase is to be  considered to  have taken place, notwithstanding the property  in  such goods  passed  in another State............ An "  outside  " sale or purchase is explained by defining what is an  inside sale,  and why actual delivery and consumption in the  State are  made  the  determining factors in locating  a  sale  or purchase  will  presently appear.  The  test  of  sufficient territorial  nexus was thus replaced by a simpler  and  more

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easily  workable test: Are the goods actually  delivered  in the taxing State as a direct result of a sale or a purchase, for the purpose of consumption therein ? Then, such sale  or purchase  shall be deemed to have taken place in that  State and  outside  all  other  States.   The  latter  States  are prohibited  from  taxing the sale or purchase ;  the  former alone is left free to do so.  Multiple taxation of the  same transaction by different States is also thus avoided." In  our  opinion,  this passage explains the  scope  of  the Explanation   and  deals  with  what  might  be   termed   " Explanation  sales ". If there is a sale falling within  the terms  of  the  Explanation, it is " inside"  the  State  of delivery-cum-consumption  and that State alone can levy  the tax.  Such a sale is outside all other 119 States,  which  are prohibited from taxing such  a  sale  by reason  of  any territorial nexus however close  or  cogent. The  passage  extracted, however, does not deal  with  cases where the sale in question does not satisfy the requirements of the Explanation leading to the fixation of the  fictional situs of the sale deter-  mining the State by which  the tax might be levied.  Whether any and, if so, which is the State which  can  levy  a  tax  on  a  sale  not  covered  by  the Explanation, is not dealt with by this decision at all. From  this it would follow that sales of type (a)  would  be exempt from the levy of tax under the Bihar Sales-Tax Act by reason  or  their being "inside" sales within the  State  of delivery-cum-consumption  and  therefore  being  "  outside" sales quoad the State of Bihar.  Sales of type (b), however, not  having  been dealt with by the decision in  the  United Motors case, it would follow that on the orders of the Board of Revenue, the previous decision of the Board in the Bengal Timber  case  would  have  still  held  the  field  and  the transactions would be liable to the levy of tax and the  tax levied  on those sales would continue to be valid.   Learned Counsel  for  the  appellants was  certainly  right  in  his submission  that as the orders of the Board of  Revenue  had became  final as between the parties, the liability  to  tax must  be  determined on the basis of  these  orders-be  they right  or  wrong.  It is therefore unnecessary  to  consider whether, apart from the decision of this Court in the United Motors case, the appellants would be entitled to any further relief  on  the basis of any other decision  of  this  Court interpreting Art. 286(1) & (2). As already stated, the appellants have already been  granted a  refund in regard to the tax collected in respect  of  the sales  falling  within type (a).  As, in  our  opinion,  the appellants  were not on the orders of the Board  of  Revenue entitled  to  a refund of the tax  on  transactions  falling within  type (b), the judgment of the High Court  dismissing their petitions is clearly right.  The appeals fail and  are dismissed,  but in the circumstances of the case there  will be no order as to costs. Appeals dismissed. 120