RUTTONJEE AND COMPANY Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is a registered firm (hereinafter referred to as the 'firm'), carrying on business under the name and style of Ruttonjee and Co. Its partners are Hirjoo Ruttonjee Bhesania. Feroze Mancherchaw Bhesania. The opposite party No. 4 is a limited company (hereinafter referred to as the 'company'), of which the partners of the firm are also directors amongst others. The company is carrying on its business under the name Ruttonjee and Co. Ltd. The firm whose original business was sale of liquors, alleges that in 1957, it applied to the proper authority for permission to start a brewery in West Bengal, and obtained such permission from the State of West Bengal (O/P. No. 1), and also obtained the permission of the Government of India for the establishment of a new industrial undertaking for the manufacture of beer. In 1959 however, before the brewery was established, the partners of the firm decided to promote a limited company to assist the firm in the financing and implementation of the project of establishing and working the said brewery. The company was accordingly incorporated in 1960, including the two partners of the firm in its Board of Directors.

(2.) The brewery license under the Rules framed under the Bengal Excise Act, 1909 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act'), was eventually granted for the period from the 2nd August, 1965 to the 31st March, 1966, (Anx. 'C-D' to the petition), not in the name of the firm alone but jointly in favour of the firm and the company, subject to certain conditions as imposed by the Government of West Bengal in their letter of 24th July, 1965, (Anx. 'C')

(3.) For the next year commencing from the 1st April. 1966 an application for renewal of the license was submitted to the Collector of Nadia (the licensing authority) jointly by the firm and the company (Anx. 'F' to the petition) and it is alleged that the firm from its own fund deposited a sum of Rs. 2,000 (Rs. two thousand), as the license fee (vide challan in Anex. 'H'). But on the 5th April, 1966, the petitioner received a copy of a letter (Anx 'I' written by the Assistant Secretary, Excise Department, Government of West Bengal, to the Excise Commissioner (O/P. No. 2) by which the Government approved of the grant of the brewery license in respect of the said brewery to the company alone, to the exclusion of the firm for the year 1966-67.