Dinesh Maheshwari JUDGMENT
A.M. Khanwilkar, J.
1. The principal question involved in these appeals is whether the subject sales (of goods imported from foreign country and after unloading the same on the land-mass of the State of West Bengal, kept in the bonded warehouse without payment of customs duty) to foreign bound ships as "ship stores" can be regarded as sale within the territory of the State and amenable to sales tax under the West Bengal Sales Tax Act, 1954 (for short, 'the 1954 Act') or the West Bengal Sales Tax Act, 1994 (for short, 'the 1994 Act').
2. The admitted factual position in the present cases is that after importing foreign made cigarettes, the Appellants stored the same in the customs bonded warehouse within the land-mass of the State of West Bengal and some of those articles were sold to the Master of a foreign-going ship as ship stores, without payment of customs duty. Those goods were escorted to the stated ship under the supervision of the officials of the Customs authority.
3. These appeals take exception to the judgment and order of the High Court at Calcutta (for short, 'the High Court'), dated 16.8.2007 in W.P.T.T. Nos. 5/2007 and 6/2007 respectively, whereby it had upheld the decision of the West Bengal Taxation Tribunal (for short, 'the Tribunal') that the stated sales were within the territory of the State of West Bengal and amenable to sales tax.
4. Civil Appeal No. 7863/2009 emanates from the assessment order passed by the Commercial Tax Officer, West Bengal, dated 13.3.1985 pertaining to assessment period - 1.4.1980 to 31.3.1981. The assessing officer rejected the claim for exemption from payment of sales tax in respect of the stated sales of imported cigarettes from the stock, as the cigarettes were sold to outgoing vessels from the bonded warehouse within the land-mass of the State of West Bengal following the decision of the High Court in M/s. Ranjit Shipping Pvt. Ltd. and Anr. v. State of West Bengal and Ors. 
MANU/WB/0421/1980 : (1980) 2 CHN 192. The authority found that it was not a sale in the course of import as claimed by the Assessees (Appellants). The Appellants unsuccessfully carried the matter in appeal and finally in revision before the Tribunal, which came to be rejected on 30.3.2007. Before the revisional authority, the only contention pursued was that there was no sale within the State of West Bengal or even in India because the buyer had no right to consume the goods before the ship crossed the territorial Waters of India. It was urged by the Appellants before the revisional authority that the process of import was not complete at the time of sale to the foreign-going ship and the