ORDER V.K. Mehrotra, J. - M/s Union Carbide India Limited, arrayed as respondent No. 2 in this petition, have a Branch Office at Lucknow. In village Maheshpur, in the rural area of District Varanasi, they have a godown where the goods manufactured by them were stored after transporting them from Calcutta or other places. From Maheshpur godown they send them to different places like Gorakhpur, Ballia, Ghazipur, Varanasi etc. according to the demand under the directions of the Branch Office at Lucknow or of other offices at places like Madras, Calcutta, Hyderabad. These are the facts which are not disputed. 2. Zila Parishad, Varanasi, which is the petitioner in this case, served the Company with a notice calling upon it to deposit some amount, by way of Circumstances and Property Tax on the ground that it was carrying on business within its limits. The Company filed an objection in which it said that it was not carrying on any business within the limits of Zila Parishad and all that it was doing was to transport the goods from the godown. The objection was rejected by the Additional Chief Executive Officer of the Zila Parishad as Assessing Officer by his order of Nov., 26, 1973 and the Company was assessed to tax. On appeal by the Company under S. 135 of the U. P. Kshetra Samitis and Zila Parishad Adhiniyam (hereinafter "the Adhiniyam"), the Commissioner of Varanasi Division as Appellate Authority reversed the order and held that the Company could not be said to be carrying on business within the limits of the Zila Parishad. It is the correctness of this the assessee, view which has been assailed by the Zila Parishad in this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution. 3. It is the correctness of this the assessee, view which has been assailed by the Zila Parishad in this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution. 3. S. 121 (a) of the Adhiniyam enables the Zila Parishad to impose Circumstances assessee Corporation, which was a and Property Tax on any person residing or Government of India Undertaking carrying on business in the rural area, manufacturing fertiliser, for welfare of its provided that such person has so resided or employees on a non-profit basis amounted carried on business for a total period of at to "carrying on of business of buying and least six months in a year under assessment." The validity of this provision is not under challenge nor is it in doubt for it has been authoritatively upheld by a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in the case of R. R. Engineering Company v. Zila Parishad, Bareilly, ( AIR 1980 SC 1088 ) : (1980 All LJ 483) which went from this Court. It is also not in dispute that the Zila Parishad does not claim to impose it upon the Company on the ground of its residence within its limits. The only triable issue between the parties is whether the activity which the Company undertakes within the rural area of the petitioner Parishad amounts, on its part, to carrying on of business by it within such an area. 4. The business of the Company is the manufacture and sale of torches, carbons etc. Admittedly, it does not manufacture anything within the rural area of Varanasi Zila Parishad nor any transaction of sale of its finished products takes place within that area. All that the Company is found to be doing in a rural area within the limits of the Zila Parishad is to bring the goods and store them on their way to dispersal to other places. The storage and dispersal is an ancillary or incidental activity of the Company, in aid of its business of manufacture and sale of the goods. It is akin to a transhipment which may have to be made by it of the goods, say at a rail head from where it is to be dispatched by road transport, ferry or the like. By itself, such incidental activity cannot amount to the carrying on of business by the Company as was erroneously thought by the Assessing Officer in this case. 5. By itself, such incidental activity cannot amount to the carrying on of business by the Company as was erroneously thought by the Assessing Officer in this case. 5. A Full Bench of this Court ruled in M/s Fertiliser Corporation of India Limited v. Commr. of Sales Tax, U. P., (1980 U.P.TC 1) : (1980 All LJ 66) that "an activity which is incidental or ancillary to trade or commerce will not constitute the business of selling goods". The Bench observed in Para. 8 of the Report that "it is not disputed that the business of the assessee was the manufacture of fertilisers, not of running canteens. Canteens were being run by the assessee in the discharge of its statutory obligation. They were incidental or ancillary to this business. This being so, the turnover could not be brought to tax." The principle that an ancillary activity would not amount to carrying on of business was accepted by this Court in a Division Bench decision in the case of Life Insurance Corporation of India v. Additional Commr., Meerut (1970 All LJ 736) while dealing with the question of the competence of Zila Parishad, Meerut to require the Life Insurance Corporation of India to pay Circumstances and Property Tax on the ground that its agents introduced Insurance business within the rural areas of the Parishad to the Corporation. The learned Judges of the Division Bench, after noticing several decisions, concluded (in para 14 of the Report) that : "The Life Insurance Corporation's business is effectively done at its office where contracts of insurance are settled and premiums etc. are received. The agents of the Corporation have no authority to settle contracts. They merely convey to the Corporation proposals for insurance, and receive the requisite commission, if the proposal is accepted. In our opinion, the activity of the agents (whose status really is of a broker) is not the essential ingradient but is an ancillary activity of the Corporation's business, and would not mean that the Corporation was carrying on business at the place of the agents. The Zila Parishad had no power to 'Impose the Circumstances and Property Tax on the Corporation." Cl. The Zila Parishad had no power to 'Impose the Circumstances and Property Tax on the Corporation." Cl. (a) of S. 121 of the Adhiniyam was examined by the Supreme Court in Zila Parishad, Kheri v. Hindustan Sugar Mills Limited ( AIR 1972 SC 151 ) wherein the Sugar Mills was found to be carrying on continuous and regular activity of buying sugarcane for crushing in the rural areas within the limits of the Zila Parishad. The factory for manufacturing sugar was situate outside of the Zila Parishad. The Supreme Court took the view that : "The sugarcane which was being purchased by the Company was not subjected to any such process by which any such commodity or finished product came into existence which by itself could earn profits. In our opinion the contention of the Zila Parishad, if accepted, would lead to the astounding and extraordinary result that if a manufacturing concern continuously acquires raw material not only from different parts of India but also from other parts of the world it could be said that it was carrying on business in all those places from where the raw materials were acquired or purchased. We are unable to give any such wide connotation to the words "carrying on business", employed in S. 121 (a) of the Adhiniyam." 6. These decisions unmistakably establish that a mere ancillary activity, like the storage of finished products in the rural area and its transport therefrom to places outside, without anything more, cannot be treated to be carrying on of business by a person within the rural area of the Zila Parishad for purposes of imposition of the Tax under S. 121 (a) of the Adhiniyam. The view taken by the Commissioner in the present case is unexceptional in law. 7. There is no merit in this petition which fails and is dismissed with costs.