H KSWARANAVAR NASHAR Vs. STATE OF MYSORE AND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By consent of parties Writ Petition No. 1367 of 1961 is treated as also being on the cause list today for hearing.

(2.) In these fifteen cases we are principally concerned with the constitutionality of the Mysore Motor Vehicles (Taxation on Passengers and Goods) Act, 1961 (Mysore Act No. 10 of 1961) which was a law made by the Legislature of the new State of Mysore to provide for the levy of tax on passengers and goods carried in stage carriages and public carrier vehicles in the State of Mysore. This Act received the assent of the President on May 31, 1961, although it is admitted that at the stage when the bill was introduced or moved in the Legislature of the State, the previous sanction of the President had not been obtained. Under the scheme of this enactment, the constitutionality of which is impugned by the petitioners, a tax on passengers, luggage and goods carried in stage carriages as defined by the impugned Act and a tax on goods carried by public carrier vehicles as defined again by the Act, were imposed. The tax imposed by Section 3(1) (i) on passengers, luggage and goods carried by stage carriages was a sum equal to ten percentum of the amount of fares and freights payable to the operator of the stage carriage. It was further provided that if the operator himself levied and collected from the passengers such fares and freights inclusive of the tax payable tinder the Act, the operator should pay to the State Government by way of tax one-eleventh of the total amount of the fares and freights inclusive of the tax collected by him from the passengers. Clause (ii) of Section 3(1) of the impugned Act imposed on all goods transported by public carrier vehicles a tax at the rate of three naye paise in the rupee on the freights payable to the operator of a public carrier vehicle.

(3.) The expression "stage carriage" occurring in the Act was defined by Section 2(1) and the expression "public carrier vehicle" was defined by Section 2(9). Section 2(13) directed that the words and expressions used in the Act but not defined in it shall have the meaning assigned to them in the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 (Central Act IV of 1939).