N BALARAJU Vs. HYDERABAD MUNICIPAL CORPORATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The object of all these petitions is to prevent the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation from levying octroi duty on some of the commodities that are brought into the city.

(2.) All the petitioners, except those in Writ Petitions NOS. 1351 of 1957, 74,174, 176, 676 and 789 of 1958 and 193/59 are excise contractors, who have taken contracts for the sale of toddy and sendhi under the group system in auctions held in the year 1956. Under the terms of the contract, toddy and sendhi were to be sold in the Secunderubad abkari limits in certain places. These petitioners were allotted for tapping toddy and sendhi trees situated in several districts of the quondam Hyderabad State including those which were merged in the States of Bombay and Mysore. They were also given necessary permits to import and transport to the depots situated within the municipal limits of Secunderabad. They started business on 1/10/1956 and the toddy and sendhi were carried in lorries to their depots from the place of tapping in various districts. When these articles reached the octroi barriers erected at the entrance to the Hyderabad municipality, they were slopped and asked, to pay octroi duty. The petitioners questioned the power of the municipality to levy octroi but, as the authorities concerned insisted on payment, they are alleged to have paid it under protest as the goods could not be moved without complying with the demand. It is said that subsequently representations were made both to the municipality and Excise officials in that behalf but without any effect. The Minister in charge of Revenue Department also seems to have been moved hut without success. Thereupon, this Court has been approached invoking its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution for various reliefs.

(3.) . At the outset, the vires of the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act, Act II of 1956 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) is challenged. It is urged that it was not within the competence of the Legislature to have enacted this measure and that, in any event, the proviso to Article 304 of the Constitution has been violated in that the previous sanction of the President was not obtained. Before we deal with this contention, it is useful to set out the circumstances under which octroi duty came to be imposed.