UDAYA MOTOR TRANSPORT Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner in these Writ petitions are operators of motor vehicales in the State of Karnataka under permits issued by the concerned authorities under the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act. Some of them are plying stage carriages,. some are owners of contract carriages and some are running public carriages. The petitioners originally had questioned in these writ petitions the validity of some of the provision of the Karnataka Motor. Vehicle (Taxation on Passengers and Goods) Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act'), as amended by the Karnataka Motor Vehicles (Taxation on Passangers and Goods)' (Amendment) Ordinance, 1974 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Ordinance'). During the; pendency of these writ petitions, the Ordinance was replaced by the Karnataka Motor Vehicles (Taxation on Passengers arid Gopds) (Amendment) Act, 1974 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Amending Act'). On the, applications made by the petitioners we have permitted them to question the validity of the provision's of the Act as amended by the amending Act in these writ petitions. 2. Since common questions of law and facts arise for consideration in these cases, we dispose them of by this common, order. 3. In exercise of its powers under Entry 56 of List IX of the Seventh Schedule ot the Constn, the State Legislature passed the Act in, thus year 1961, by which' the Legislature levied taxes on passengers and goods carried by stage carriage and public carriers. The expression 'Stage Carriages' includes 'Contract Carriages' also as per its definition in S.2(10) of the Act. S.3 of the Act, immediatekly prior to the promulgation of the, Ordinance, read as follows :

(2.) An application for the grant or renewal of permission to pay the composition fee mentioned above, shall be made not less than fifteen days before the commencement of the neriod for which the tax is intended to be compounded, provided that the Tax Officer may, in any case, for reasons to be recorded by him in writing, permit the application to be made not later than fifteen days from such commencement and the application shall be accompanied by a receipt evidencing the payment into a Govt treasury of the composition fee." By the Ordinance, S 3 and the Schedule of the Act were amended by substituting the words 'twenty per centum' in place of 'fifteen per centum in S.3(1) (i) of the Act, and one sixth' in the proviso to S 3 (1) (i) of the Act. S .3 (1)(ii) was amended by substituting the words 'ten paise' in place of 'five nave paise'. The first proviso tosub-sec.(ii) of S.3(1) was amended by substituting 9 5 percent in place of '4 75 percent. After the amendment, para 1 of 1he Schedhle to the Act, reads as follows:

(3.) Although the Ordinance was passed on 31st July 1974, it was given retrospective effect from 1-4-1974. As already mentioned, the Ordinance was replaced by the Amending Act (Karnataka Act No. 30 of 1974) without any material change in the provisions of the Ordinance except to the extent of re-enacting the Explanation to Para 1 of the Schedule which had been emitted by the Ordinance. The resulting position is that persons who are operating stage carriages have to pay twenty per cent of the fanes collected by them by way of tax and persons operating public carriers have to pay ten per cent of the freights collected by them by way of tax. If the operators instead ot charging the passengers and the owners of goods separately, collected the tax including it in the fares or freights levied by them, the operators of stage carriages have to pay one-sixth of the total fare collected by them and the operators of the, public carriers have pay 9.5 per cent of the freights collectd by them. Wherever the operates choose to compound their liability under the provisions of Sec. 14 of the Act, the operators of stage carriages have to pay Rs.20 per seat per month and the operators of public carriers have to pay seven-rupees per month per tonne or part thereof of registered laden weight or, at the option of the -owner, ten rupees per month per tonne or part thereof of the pay- load that is, registered laden weight minus the unladen weight of the vehicle. It should be mentioned here that in the case of operators of staga carriages, whereever they chose to compound their liability under S.14 of the Act before the Ordinance was passed, they had two alternative: methods of composition, namely, that they could have either paid at the rate of .one rupee, per seat per year per mile or Rs. 10-65 per seat permonth. After the passing of the Ordinance the only method in which the operators of stage carriages can compound their liability is by payment of Rs.20 per seat per month.