1952 (3) TMI 28

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....aving its registered office at Calcutta. It does business in these territories, and by the order dated 8th April, 1950, the Assistant Commissioner of Sales Tax, Amraoti, assessed the applicant to a tax of Rs. 58,657-14. The applicant preferred an appeal before the Commissioner of Sales Tax. Under the proviso to sub- section (1) of Section 22, Central Provinces and Berar Sales Tax Act, 1947, an appeal cannot be admitted until the tax assessed on the appellants is deposited by him. The applicant did not pay the tax and therefore its appeal was not admitted by the Sales Tax Com- missioner. It thereupon made an application to this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution stating that it was not liable to deposit the tax as a condition preced....

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....clause (a) of Clause (1) of Article 133. A decision to be appealable under Article 133 must be " a judgment, decree or final order" and must have been arrived at in a civil proceeding of a High Court. It is not necessary for us to consider whether the proceeding before this Court was of a civil nature or not, because in our view the decision does not amount to "a judgment, decree or final order". We may, however, say that a proceeding by way of mandamus was held to be a "proceed- ing in a civil case" in The Justice of the Peace for the Town of Calcutta v. The Oriental Gas Co. Ltd.(1) by Couch, C.J., and Markby, J. (1) 17 W.R. 364 (371).   The decision of the High Court is obviously not a decree. But according to the learned Counsel ....

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....peal before their Lordships was incompetent. There is also a decision of the Federal Court in Mohammad Amin Bros. v. Dominion of India(3), which lays down the test for determining the finality of an order. According to their Lord- ships the test is whether the judgment or order finally disposes of the rights of the parties. The mere fact that the order decides an import- ant and even a vital issue is by itself, according to their Lordships, not material, unless the decision puts an end to the suit. The finality must thus be a finality in relation to the suit. In the present case, the applicant can completely ignore the order of this Court. The final order, so far as the question raised before us is concerned, is that of the Commissioner ....