S ADAPPA Vs. TRANSPORT COMMISSIONER IN MYSORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition concerns a best judgment determination of the tax which the petitioner was called upon to pay under the provisions of the Mysore Motor Vehicles (Taxation on Passengers and Goods) Act, 1961. From the order of the tax officer who made that determination there was an appeal to the Commissioner of Transport who dismissed it. The petitioner asks us to quash the orders made against him.

(2.) It is undisputed that the motor vehicle with which we are concerned in this writ petition is a tractor trailer in respect of which the petitioner obtained a public carrier permit. A public carrier vehicle, according to the definition contained in S. 2(9) of the Act, means a motor vehicle carrying or adapted to carry goods for hire or reward. During the proceedings before the Tax Officer for the determination of the tax payable by him on the hypothesis that the tractor trailer was used by him for carrying goods, notices were taken out to the petitioner twice and those notices were served on him personally. But when he did not appear, the Tax Officer rightly proceeded to make a determination of the tax to the best of his judgment under the proviso to Section 6 of the Act. The relevant portion of that Section reads. Procedure where no returns are submitted, etc.--In the following cases, that is to say,-

(3.) Section 4 directs every operator of a public carrier vehicle to produce periodically returns in the prescribed form, and, it is common ground that the petitioner produced no such returns. It is explained by Mr. Rangaswamy, the learned Advocate for the petitioner, that no such returns was produced since the tractor-trailer owned by the petitioner was not a public carrier and was not used as such. It was submitted that a public carrier permit was obtained by the petitioner under some mistaken supposition.