MUNICIPAL COMMITTEE Vs. BOARD OF REVENUE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE order in this appeal shall also govern the disposal of Letters Patent Appeals nos. 153 to 155, all of 1955. These appeals have been filed against the orders made by Bhutt J. , in four miscellaneous petitions filed by the Municipal Committee, sagar, asking that the orders of the Additional Deputy Commissioner, Sagar, and the Board of Revenue Madhya Pradesh, Nagpur, passed respectively on 11-121950 and 8-9-1954 be quashed.

(2.) THE facts of these four cases are alike, except in the matter of some dates and amounts involved. Shortly stated these facts are as follows: The third respondent in each of these Letters Patent appeals is a firm of bidi merchants, which exported within the limits of the Sagar Municipality certain quantities of tobacco. According to the rules existing in the said municipality they were required to pay octroi duty on the tobacco so imported. They, however, felt that in view of the demands of the Central Government of excise duty on the same tobacco the municipal Committee was not entitled to make a second demand of octroi from them. They filled in the declaration forms prescribed, leaving the 5th column unentered, because they declined to pay the duty and did not even pay it in protest. Along with the declarations so filed they claimed a refund of the duty which, it has been mentioned, was not paid on that elate.

(3.) THE firms then filed a suit for injunction against the Municipal Committee to prohibit the Committee from making the demand of the octroi duty. We need not go into the details of that suit except to say that it was dismissed on 13-12-1947 (Civil Suit 4a of 1947 of the Court of First Additional District Judge, Sagar ). The firms thereafter paid the octroi duty on 16-1-1948, and it seems that they pressed for the refund of a part of that duty on the ground that some of the goods imported had since been exported outside the municipal limits and that under the rules they were entitled to a refund of the duty so collected. This request of theirs was turned down by the Municipal Committee, which appointed a sub-committee of the Finance Committee to consider the matter. The sub-Committee decided all the cases of refund unfavourably to the firms on the ground that column 5 of the declaration asking for refund, which requires importers to show the amount of duty they had already paid, was left unfilled, and that the applications for refund were therefore liable to be rejected. This recommendation of the Sub-Committee was approved by the Finance committee by its resolution dated 14-12-1. 948, and the said resolution in its turn was approved by the General Committee on 30-12-1948. Admittedly, this resolution was not communicated to the contending firms, and these firms filed an appeal against the order involved in the resolution of the General Committee before the Deputy Commissioner on 23-10-1950. The appeal was heard by the Additional Deputy Commissioner, who by his order dated 3. 1-12-1950 allowed the appeal and ordered refund of the octroi duty collected from the firms on tobacco which had since been exported outside the municipal area. A further appeal was taken to the Board of Revenue, but it was rejected. It was in these circumstances that the Municipal Committee filed the four petitions out of which these present appeals arise for getting the orders of the Additional deputy Commissioner and the Board of Revenue quashed.