THUTTAMPARA PLANTING CO Vs. TAHSILDAR CHITTUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) "it is common ground that the tax assuming that the Act is really a taxing statute and not a confiscatory measure, as contended on behalf of the petitioners, has no reference to income, either actual or potential, from the property sought to be taxed. Hence, it may be rightly remarked that the Act obliges every person who holds land to pay the tax at the flat fate prescribed whether or not he makes any income out of the property, or whether or not the property is capable of yielding any income. The Act, in terms, claims to be 'a general revenue settlement of the state' (Section 3 ). Ordinarily a tax on land or land revenue is assessed on the actual or the potential productivity of the land sought to be taxed. In other words, the tax has reference to the income actually made, or which could have been made, with due diligence, and, therefore, is levied with due regard to the incidence of the taxation". So said the Chief Justice of India in K. T. Mooppil Nair v. State of Kerala, AIR 1961 SC 552. This passage has been relied on by counsel for the petitioner in this case and he contends, that for the same reason for which the supreme Court struck down the Travancore-Cochin Land Tax Act (15 of 1955 as amended by Act 10 of 1957), the statute impugned in this petition, the Kerala plantations (Additional Tax) Act. 1960, must also be removed from the statute book.

(2.) IT is necessary to refer to the arguments advanced in support of this contention. They were mainly two-fold. Firstly, it was urged that the State Legislature had no legislative competency to pass the Act impugned. Secondly, it was argued that the statute, the Kerala Plantations (Additional Tax) Act, 1960, is discriminatory and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.

(3.) IN support of the first of these contentions, counsel referred to Item 45 in List II of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution. He said that the Act does not purport to be a tax on agricultural income and would not, therefore, fall under Item 46 of the same List. His contention is that it would not fall under Item 45 either, for, according to him, the tax. imposed is not on land, but, if it amounts to anything, it can only be termed to be a tax on trees. In order to understand the scope of this contention, it is necessary to refer to some of the provisions of the statute. The preamble of the statute says: