VIDARBHA COAL SUPPLY COMPANY Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this petitions-M/s. Vidarbha Coal Supply Company, a transporter, has challenged the validity of the transit fee charges imposed by respondent No. 2 Cantonment Board, Kamptee under its Octroi Bye-laws, 1986 framed by virtue of authority conferred under section 284(1) of the Contonments Act, 1924 (Act No. 2 of 1924).

(2.) Relevant facts are few. The petitioner has taken the contract of transporting coal from Kamptee Inder Colliery of the Western Coalfields near Kanhan to the Koradi Thermal Power Station of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board. It has to transport approximately 150 trucks of coal every day from Kamptee Colliery to Koradi Power Station. The road on which these trucks ply passes through the area of Kamptee Cantonment Board as well as Kamptee Municipal Council. It is a part of Nagpur-Jabalpur National Highway. Neither is contonment area a destination of those goods nor are they brought in the area for consumption, use or sales. Relevant Octroi bye-law 10 reads thus : "Procedure for goods imported which are intended for immediate exportation : Goods imported by rail, air road and intended for immediate export shall be dealt with as follows :

(3.) The petitioners challenge to the levy is two-fold. One is that the very levy is illegal and the other is that it does not answer the test of quid pro quo. We take up point No. One for consideration first. Now, Section 60 of the Cantonments Act empowers the Board to impose with previous sanction of the Central Government in any cantonment any tax which under any enactment for the time being in force may be imposed in any Municipality in the State wherein such cantonment is situated. Section 105 of the Maharashtra Municipalities Act, 1965 empowers the imposition of compulsory taxes. Octroi is one of them. The Toll or Terminal tax are not included in the list of imposable taxes under section 105 or any other provision in the said Act.