CHANDRA SEKHAR PROSAD Vs. KAMAL PROSAD BISWAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are applications under Article 133(1)(c) of the Constitution for the High Court certificate that the case is a fit one for appeal to the Supreme Court. One application is by the petitioner Chandra Sekhar Prosad. The other application is by the State of West Bengal, the Excise Minister of West Bengal, the Excise Commissioner, of West Bengal, the Deputy Commissioner, Jalpaiguri and the Excise Superintendent, Jalpaiguri. As both the applications, they are taken together for disposal in one judgment.

(2.) The case is concerned with the Bengal Excise Act and our judgment is reported as Kamal Prosad Biswas v. Chandra Sekhar Prosad and others, 70 CWN 807. The short crucial point involved, as indicated in our judgment there, is if a Minister who has certified a candidate, can himself sit in judgment and adjudge in revision that candidate's fitness and to grant him an excise licence after setting aside the concurrent orders of the Collector and the Commissioner of Excise. The Court held he could not. There is therefore on this essential point no ground to certify that this is a fit case for appeal to the Supreme Court under Article 133(1)(c) of the Constitution. Indeed it is surprising that a Government or its Minister should think otherwise.

(3.) The Court came to the conclusion that Minister's order in revision under Section 8(3) of the Bengal Excise Act was in utter breach and disregard of the basic principles of natural justice and fair hearing on such specific grounds as (1) that the order of the Minister under Section 8(3) of the Act was tainted with bias and he should never have decided the said revision case and he was biased on the plain fact that he himself was adjudging a person in whose favour he had granted a certificate; (2) that no copy of the revision petition was allowed to be given to the petitioner in that case and yet a notice was given to come and resist the said revision petition and the Court held that it was a clear violation of the principles of natural justice and fair hearing; and (3) that the most necessary and vitally interested parties were not even notified of this revision case and were not before the Minister when he was revising the order. The Court also expressed the view that in such a revision the concurrent findings of fact should not as a rule be interfered with unless the findings were based on no evidence and unsupported by facts. The Court further expressed the view that on the language used in Section 8(3) of the Bengal Excise Act the State Government in performing the revisional work for the appellate authority must be regarded as acting at least quasi-judicially. Each one of these points is concluded by a series of authorities of the Supreme Court settling the principles. There is therefore no ground left on which this Court can now certify it as First Information Report for appeal to the Supreme Court under Article 133(1) (c) of the Constitution.