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With great respect, we are constrained to observe that the view expressed by the learned Judges of the Bombay High Court runs counter to the scheme of section 9 of the Central Sales Tax Act and stultify the purpose for which a define provision was introduced with retrospective effect in the year 1969. The rightful and authorised agent of Government of India is identified by section 9(1). If some other State assumes the role of an agent and proceeds to collect the tax, it will be out-stepping its jurisdiction. The fiction imported by the Division Bench of the Bombay High Court breaks down when once we appreciate that the acts of a State unauthorisedly donning the robe of an agent, need not be owned up by the Central Government and by a fiction, it cannot be treated that the Central Government has got the double benefit. True, an unjust or anamolous situation projects itself. But the only way to remove this anamolous situation would be to direct the State which has realised illegitimate revenue to disgorge that benefit. Whether we should give such a direction in this case is a matter which we will deal with in the connected writ petitions. We may also point out that if the view expressed by the Bombay High Court is to be countenanced, then, there will be virtually a scramble amongst the States to collect the Central sales tax in the first instance so that the first State which collects the tax will benefit. Such a situation would lead to a great uncertainty and unhealthy competition. We, therefore, express our respectful dissent from the view expressed by the Bombay High Court in Barium Chemicals case [1981] 48 STC 121, the ratio of which has been considerably whittled down by the judgment of the Supreme Court in State of U.P. v. Kasturi Lal Har Lal .