Export transactions remain constitutionally protected, while purchase tax provisions survive scrutiny where they do not tax sales in export course.

Clause (c) of section 6-A of the A.P. General Sales Tax Act was upheld as constitutional because the provision operated only on a taxable event anterior to a sale or purchase in the course of export, while article 286 and the corresponding statutory bars continued to protect export sales from tax. The classification between inter-State sales and export transactions was treated as based on a real and intelligible differentia. On the writ remedy question, the Court indicated that whether the purchases were in the course of export required factual examination, so the assessee should pursue the statutory appeal rather than invoke writ jurisdiction at the provisional assessment stage.

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Issues: (i) Whether clause (c) of section 6-A of the A.P. General Sales Tax Act, 1957 was unconstitutional as violative of article 286 of the Constitution of India; (ii) whether the writ petition should be entertained at the stage of provisional assessment when the assessee had an appellate remedy.

Issue (i): Whether clause (c) of section 6-A of the A.P. General Sales Tax Act, 1957 was unconstitutional as violative of article 286 of the Constitution of India.

Analysis: Section 6-A was held to operate only on a taxable event anterior to the sale or purchase in the course of export. The exclusion in clause (c) for inter-State sales did not render the provision unconstitutional merely because export transactions were not similarly excepted. Article 286, read with section 38 of the A.P. General Sales Tax Act, 1957 and section 5 of the Central Sales Tax Act, 1956, continued to protect sales or purchases in the course of export from taxation. The classification between inter-State sales and export transactions was treated as based on a real and intelligible differentia.

Conclusion: Clause (c) of section 6-A was upheld as constitutional and the challenge under article 286 failed.

Issue (ii): Whether the writ petition should be entertained at the stage of provisional assessment when the assessee had an appellate remedy.

Analysis: The controversy whether the purchases were in the course of export depended on factual examination of documents and was at least a mixed question of law and fact. The petitioner was therefore expected to pursue the statutory appeal rather than invoke writ jurisdiction at that stage. The Court also clarified that if the purchases were proved to be in the course of export, they would fall outside section 6-A and the appellate authority would have to examine the claim on merits.

Conclusion: The writ petition was not entertained on merits and the petitioner was relegated to the appellate remedy.

Final Conclusion: The constitutional challenge was rejected, the assessment dispute was left to be decided in statutory appeal, and interim protection was granted to facilitate that remedy.

Ratio Decidendi: A provision imposing purchase tax on taxable goods does not become unconstitutional merely because it does not exempt export-related despatches, so long as it does not tax sales or purchases in the course of export, which remain protected by article 286 and the corresponding statutory bar.

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