URAN ISLAMPUR MUNICIPALITY Vs. SHANKARRAO AMRITRAO JADHAV

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These revisional applications raise a common question of law and therefore we have decided to dispose of them by a common judgment. The point of law which is raised in all these applications is this: If a person, who brings or introduces an article, on which octori is payable, into the octroi limits of a municipal district, refuses to pay the octroi leviable upon the article, is a suit tenable against him under the Bombay District Municipal Act, 1901 (Bom. Act III of 1901) There has been no decision of this High court, and we have not been referred to anydecision of any other High Court, upon this point. It is for this reason that these revisional applications raise a point of some importance.

(2.) For thepurpose of delivering judgment, it will be convenient to set out the facts which have given rise to Civil Revisional Application No. 1454 of 1956. This revisional application has arisen out of a judgment and decree passed by the learned Civil Judge, Junior Division, at Islampur in Small Cause Civil Suit No. 33 of 1953. The plaintiff of that suit is the applicant in Civil Revisional Application No. 1454 of 1956. The said plaintiff is the Uran Islampur Municipality. This Municipality filed Small Cause Civil Suit No. 33 of 1953 to recover from the defendants the amount of Rs. 156-4-0 as octroi duty. It may be noted that the defendants are traders residing within the limits of the Uran Islampur Municipality. The plaintiff's allegation is that in June 1948 the defendants imported a goods struck bearing No. 6140 within the municipal area and therefore they were bound to pay theoctroi duty upon the truck. It is further the contention of the plaintiff that the defendants ran the truck within the municipal limits without paying the octroi duty. Repeated demands were made upon the defendants to pay the octroi, but, says the plaintiff, the defendants did not comply with those demands. As the result of the abovementioned circumstances, a small cause suit being Suit No. 33 of 1953 was filed in the Islampur Court by the plaintiff against the defendants for recovering octori duty to the tune of Rs. 156-0.

(3.) The suit was resisted by the defendants and one of the contentions which the defendants took was that the suit was ot maintainable under the provisions of the Bombay District Municipal Act, 1901 and the by-laws made by the plaintiff Municipality under the Bombay District Municipal Act the liability to pay octroi upon the goods was cast upon the goods themselves and therefore no suit could be filed against the defendants to recover the octroi from them. The learned trial Judge accepted the contention of the defendants and held that no suit was maintainable against the defendants for the recovery of octroi from them under the Bombay District Municipal Act and the by-laws made by the plaintiff Municipality under the said Act.