STATE BANK OF INDIA Vs. ZILA PARISHAD GORAKHPUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution Petitioner State Bank of India challenges the validity of the proceedings for assessment and recovery of circumstances and property tax imposed by the Zila Parishad, Gorakhpur upon its various branches located within the jurisdiction of that Zila Parishad.

(2.) Petitioner State Bank of India is a corporate body having its central office at Bombay. It maintains various branches at various places in the country and also in other countries. The general superintendence and direction of affairs of the business of the Petitioner is entrusted to the Petitioner's Central Board, constitution of which is governed by Section 19 of the State Bank of India Act. It has its local head offices at Bombay, Calcutta, New Delhi, Madras, Ahmadabad. Hyderabad, Kanpur, Patna and Bhopal which control the affairs of the offices and sub-offices etc., situated within their respective regions. The Petitioner Bank has a number of branches and sub-offices in the district of Gorakhpur located within the jurisdiction of Zila Parishad, Gorakhpur. For the years 1970-71 to 1974-75 Zila Parishad, Gorakhpur assessed circumstance and property tax on some of the branches of the Petitioner Bank located within its jurisdiction at the rate of Rs. 2000/- per year and has also issued notices to other branches of the Petitioner for assessing them accordingly. It has also issued notices of demand requiring various branches of the Petitioner to pay the circumstance and property tax so assessed against them.

(3.) By means of this petition, the Petitioner has challenged the validity of assessment of circumstance and property tax against its branches inter alia on the ground that under the Uttar Pradeah Kshetra Samitis and Zila Parishad Adhi-niyam, Zila Parishad, Gorakhpur could assess and impose circumstance and property tax only upon the Petitioner, and that it had no jurisdiction to assess tax on its individual branches. According to it, in substance the Zila Parishad, Gorakhpur, which has imposed a tax amounting to Rs. 2,000/- against each of its branches, is seeking to recover an amount which is far in excess of Rs. 2,000/-(maximum of the limit to which circumstance and property tax can be imposed under the Constitution) from the Petitioner. The stand taken by the Zila Parishad, however, is that each of the said branches of the State Bank of India is carrying on separate and independent business within its jurisdiction hence each one of them is liable to be assessed to circumstance and property tax under the provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Kshettra Samiti and Zila Parishad Adhlniyam, separately and that its action in assessing each of the branches of the State Bank of India separately and in recovering the circumstance and property tax so assessed against them, is within its jurisdiction.