LORD KRISHNA SUGAR MILLS LTD. Vs. MUNICIPAL BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petitioner's appeal against an order of Mr. Justice Mehrotra dismissing a petition filed under Art. 226 of the Constitution. The petitioner is a limited company carrying on business in sugar & cloth. It manufactures cloth in its textile mills situated outside the municipal limits of Saharanpur. The cloth is then exported out of Saharanpur by rail to other places. After being packed in bales the cloth is put on motor lorries which have to pass through the Saharanpur Municipal area in order to reach the railway station for being booked by rail. The Municipal Board of Saharanpur levies a terminal toll on all laden vehicles entering its toil limits. In respect of vehicles carrying goods which are declared to be for immediate export, however, on payment of a small fee, a transit pass is issued to the vehicles which entitled them to pass through the export barrier within a fixed time without any sorting or change of bulk in the goods. Contending that the motor lorries which carried the bales of cloth manufactured by the appellant from its mills to the railway station for being blocked for export were also entitled to the benefit of transit passes, the appellant moved the Municipal authorities for that relief. The request was, however, rejected. The appellant then filed the writ petition out of which this appeal has arisen and prayed that the Hon'ble Court may be pleased to issue.

(2.) The petition was dismissed by the learned Judge who heard it as he took the view that the appellant was not entitled to the benefit of the rule relating to transit passes. Hence this appeal. The contentions urged before us by the learned counsel for the appellant in support of the appeal were these: - -

(3.) It is worth noting at this stage that on the 8th September, 1955 when the petition was filed the rules relating to terminal toll which were in force in Saharanpur were those mentioned in Annexure 'B' of the affidavit filed in support of the petition. A day earlier on the 9th Sep. 1955, however, a new set of rules relating to transit of goods on vehicles through all municipalities including that of Saharanpur were notified which were to come into force from the 15th Oct., 1955. They are to be found in Annexure 'I' to the affidavit of Sri Madho Prasad filed on behalf of the respondent. As these latter rules were not in force on the date on which the petition was filed we are not concerned in the present appeal with those rules. We must confine our attention in this appeal to the rules to be found in Annexure 'B'.