P KESAVA RAO Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These petitions are filed under Article 226 of the Constitution for the issue of a writ of mandamus directing the State of Andhra Pradesh and the State Transport Authority to forbear from collecting from the petitioners, tax or taxes by enforcing any of the provisions of the Madras Motor Vehicles Taxation Act (III of 1931) and the Madras Motor Vehicles Taxation of Passengers and Goods Act (XVI of 1952). All these petitions raise a common question relating to the interpretation of the provisions of the Madras Motor Vehicles Taxation Act and the Hyderabad Motor Vehicles Taxation Act, 1955 and hence could be disposed of in one judgment. The petitioners are public carriers engaged in the business of transporting goods to places in the region known as Telangana and to places outside it. Their vehicles were registered and tax paid under the Hyderabad Motor Vehicles Taxation Act.

(2.) The tax is levied on these goods vehicles every quarter on the basis of the registered laden weight. It may be mentioned that this (Hyderabad) Act prescribes rates lower than those under the Madras Motor Vehicles Taxation Act. Some of the petitioners were having their business in the erstwhile Hyderabad State. They were required to pay tax under the Madras Motor Vehicles Taxation Act when these petitioners wanted to ply their vehicles in the Andhra State. After the erection of Andhra Pradesh on 1st November, 1956, the Government of Andhra Pradesh insisted on the payment of taxes under the Madras Motor Vehicles Taxation Act for allowing the petitioners to ply their vehicles in the other territory of the State which constituted before the appointed date the Andhra State, at the rates specified in Schedule II of that Act in spite of the objection of the petitioners that the liability to pay such tax under the latter enactment ceased with the formation of Andhra Pradesh State. The respondents overruled this objection with the result that the owners of these public carriers had to obtain a licence on payment of tax under the Madras Motor Vehicles Taxation Act, if they desired to ply these public carriers beyond Telengana. It is this attitude of the respondents that has led to the presentation of these petitions.

(3.) The principal contention urged on behalf of the petitioners is that, when once the vehicles were registered in the State of Andhra Pradesh and tax paid under one of the statutes prevailing in the State, there was no liability to pay additional tax under another enactment. After the merger of the territory known as Telangana on the disintegration of the erstwhile Hyderabad State, the identity of the two States is not maintained for any purpose except for the preservation of the laws obtaining in the respective regions prior to the reorganisation of the States. Since the State Reorganisation Act contemplated only one State and not two, when a vehicle is registered in one part of the State, that enures for the benefit of the registered owner throughout Andhra Pradesh and the registered owner could ply his vehicle in any part of the State without being subjected to additional taxes.