BABA INDUSTRIES Vs. ASSISTANT COLLECTOR OF CUSTOMS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE Writ Petitions coming on for hearing on this day upon perusing the petitions and the respective affidavits filed in support thereof the order of the High Court dated 14-7-1981 and made herein, and the records relating to the prayer aforesaid comprised in the return of the respondents in all the petitions herein, to the Writs made by the High Court, and upon hearing the arguments of Mr. K.C. Rajappa , Advocate for the petitioner, in all the petitions and of Mr. P. Narasimhan , Standing Counsel for central Government on behalf of the respondents in all the petitions herein the court made the following order :- "where public bodies, under colour of public laws, recover people's moneys, latter discovered to be erroneous levies the dharma of the situation admits of no equivocation. There is no law of limitation, especially for public bodies, on the virtue of returning what was wrongly recovered to whom it belongs. Nor is it palatable to our jurisprudence to turn down the prayer for high prerogative writs, on the negative plea of'alternative remedy', since the root principle of law married to justice, isubijus ibi remedium. The lawubi jus ibi remedium, becomes from this point of view something more important than a mere tautological proposition. In its bearing upon constitutional law, it means that the Englishmen whose labours gradually formed the complicated set of laws and institutions which we call the constitution, fixed their minds for more intently on providing remedies for the enforcement of particular rights or for averting definite wrongs, than upon any declaration of the Rights of Man or Englishmen. . . . . . . . The Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the separate states are embodied in written or printed documents, and contain declaration of rights. But the statesmen of America have shown an unrivalled skill in providing means for giving legal security to the rights declared by American Constitutions. The rule of law is as marked a feature of the United States as of England.'

(2.) ANOTHER point, in our jurisdiction, social justice is a pervasive presence, and so, save in special situations it is fair to be guided by the strategy of equity by asking those who claim the service of the judicial process to embrace the basic rule of distributive justice, while moulding the relief, by consenting to restore little sums, taken in little transactions, from little persons, to whom they belong.

(3.) THE point for consideration in these three petitions is whether there are adequate grounds for ordering refund as prayed for by the petitioner"