HAR SHANKAR Vs. DEPUTY EXCISE AND TAXATION COMMR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a group of appeals founded on certificates of fitness granted by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana under Articles 132 (1) and 133 (1) (a) and (c) of the Constitution. The appeals arise out of a common judgment dated 18/11/1968 rendered by the High Court in a batch of 152 writ petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution. Those petitions were filed by liquor contractors and hoteliers to challenge the demands made upon them by the Department of Excise and Revenue, Government of Punjab.

(2.) THE appellants are mostly retail vendors of country liquor holding licenses for the sale of liquor in specified vends. Those licences were granted to them on acceptance of their bids in the auctions held by the Excise Department, Government of Punjab. THE 'licence fees realised through bids made in the auctions are said to be in.the neighbourhood of Rs. 29 crores.

(3.) AUCTIONS for granting the right to sell country liquor for the year 1968-69 were initially held in various districts of Punjab on or about 8-3-1968 in pursuance of conditions of auction framed on 19/02/1968. Those auctions became ineffective by reason of a judgment, D/- 12-3-1968 of a Division Bench of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana in Civil Writ No, 1376 of 1967 (Jage Ram v. State of Haryana) Following an earlier judgment in Bhajan Lal v. State of Punjab (Civil Writ No. 538 of 1966 decided on 6-2-1967) = (1967 Cur LJ 460) the High Court took the view that the licence fee realised through the medium of auctions was really in the nature of "still-head duty" and that the licensees could not be called upon by the Government to pay still-head duty on the liquor quota which, under the terms of auctions, they were bound to lift but which in fact was not lifted by them.