NARAYANAN A R Vs. WEALTH TAX OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN these writ petitions the petitioners seek to quash the assessment orders made against them by the concerned Wealth-tax Officer. The assessment orders are attacked by the petitioners on two grounds : (1) the provisions of the Finance Act of 1969 seeking to include agricultural lands in the definition of " asset" in the Wealth-tax Act, 1957, is ultra vires and unconstitutional as Parliament had no legislative competence to enact a law seeking to levy a tax on agricultural lands; and (2) the proviso to Section 5(1)(iva) of the Wealth-tax Act, 1957, as amended by the Finance Act of 1969, is liable to be struck down as discriminatory in that it has made invidious and hostile discrimination by granting higher exemption to assessees who own agricultural lands and other assessees who own other assets, and that the higher exemption relating to agricultural lands alone is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.

(2.) THE first contention has at once to be rejected in view of the decision of the Supreme Court in Union of India v. Harbhajan Singh Dhillon, . which has upheld the validity of the relative provision in the Finance Act, 1969, holding that Parliament was competent to take the value of agricultural lands for the purpose of levy of wealth-tax under the Wealth-tax Act, 1957.