MADAN LAL GUPTAS Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These matters, before the Court, have been pending for the last fifteen years. The issue is whether the erstwhile Town Area, Bisauli, now a Municipality, could prescribe taxes on trades, professions and callings and could discriminate between professional persons by levying taxes on some and leaving others out. Further were the taxes to be confined only, to the limit of Rs. 260 as prescribed in the Constitution of India, as it stood then by virtue of Article 276.

(2.) Counsel for the petitioners has submitted that the procedure and the manner in which taxes had been processed were irregular and illegal. These taxes have been assailed on the ground that' there was no publication inviting objections on the taxes proposed to be levied. General notices to tax in context have been appended to the writ petition. The Court has not been benefited with notices specifically issued to persons or individuals, intended to be taxed. What has been appended to the petition are objections by certain persons through a lawyer impugning the notice which was issued and cautioning the Municipality that a suit will be filed on the assessments, if made.

(3.) Answering the petition, the State respondents have filed a counter-affidavit sworn by a clerk. One fact pleaded by the petitioners is accepted by the respondents that the local body concerned, the municipality, was superseded and was without elected members. On the matter relating to allegations of the petitioners that there was no adequate publicity of notices, the contention is that announcement of the proposed tax was published in a newspaper with local circulation in 'Urdu' known as MARDAN. The petitioners resist this proposition on the ground that this paper has no circulation within the local limits of the area and that more widely circulated daily newspapers were available for publication but the respondents did not publish the notices in such newspapers. It is submitted that the State respondents chase publications which had no substantial circulation in the eyes of law and this is not adequate publicity.