MANOHARRAO GANGADHAR RAO Vs. MUNICIPAL COUNCIL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this application under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution, the petitioner challenges the validity of a tax levied on persons carrying on, within the pandhurna Municipal limits, the trade of ginning and pressing cotton under a notification issued by the Governor of the Central Provinces and Berar on 23rd january 1938, and seeks a direction for restraining the Municipal Council, pandhurna, from collecting the tax from him.

(2.) THE petitioner, who claims to be the owner of Kekatpure Ginning and Pressing factory, situated within the municipal limits of the respondent Municipal Council, contends that the tax is ultra vires because of the operation of Section 142a of the government of India Act, 1935, and Article 276 of the Constitution; and that the tax is a tax on profession, trade or calling as contemplated by the aforesaid provisions and cannot exceed the maxima laid down in those provisions.

(3.) IN order to appreciate this contention, it is necessary to refer to the relevant statutory provisions. Section 66 (1) (b) of the Central Provinces and Berar municipalities Act, 1922, empowered a municipal committee to impose in the whole or in any part of the municipality "a tax on persons exercising any profession or art, or carrying on any trade or calling, within the limits of the municipality". On 23rd January 1938, the State Government issued a notification under Section 67 (7) of the Act of 1922 sanctioning the imposition by the respondent Municipal Committee, Pandhurna, of a tax under Section 66 (1) (b) of the said Act" on persons carrying on the trade of ginning and pressing cotton by means of steam or mechanical process" within the limits of the municipality at the following rates--" (a) For each boja of 392 lbs.--2 annas. (b) For each bale of 392 lbs.--2 annas. " the rules which were notified by the Government on 13th June 1938 for the assessment and collection of the tax, inter alia required every person carrying on within the limits of the municipality the trade of ginning or pressing cotton into bales, to furnish to the committee annually by the 1st of May a return in the form appended to the rules of the number of Bozas ginned and the number of bales pressed with the total weight in maunds. . . . .