PRATIVA SASMAL Vs. AGRICULTURAL INCOME TAX OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application and a number of other applications have been heard together and a common set of arguments have been made. The point involved in all these applications is the constitutionality of certain provisions of the Bengal Agricultural Income Tax Act, 1944 (Bengal Act IV of 1944) (hereinafter referred to as the Act) and of the Rules made thereunder. So far as this application is concerned, the facts are shortly as follows:

(2.) The petitioner is interested in certain agricultural lands situate in the district of Midnapore. She is the administratix pendente lite of her deceased husband's estate. There is included in the estate of the deceased, about 787.88 acres of khas land. It is the agricultural income-tax payable in respect of this land that has given rise to the dispute in this case. The petitioner filed a return of agricultural income for the accounting period 1361 B. S. showing a total income amounting to Rs. 30,585-0-10 1/2. On 30-6-1956 the respondent No. 1, the Agricultural Income-tax Officer, Calcutta Range II made an assessment of the petitioner's income at Rs. 56,888-4-0. A demand notice was issued for a sum of Rs. 11339-3-0 and a penalty has been imposed under Section 32 (1) (a) of the said Act. The petitioner has not filed an appeal, but has come up straight to this Court. Had the matter rested there, the application would have been liable to summary dismissal because the petitioner had an alternative legal remedy but did not avail of it. The point agitated before me, however, is that certain provisions of the said Act are ultra vires, inasmuch as it was beyond the competence of the State Legislature. It is not correct that such a point cannot be gone into by the courts below. But in the long run it is bound to come back to the High Court, and it is better to deal with it now rather than dismiss the application on this preliminary point.

(3.) The points originally taken in the petition were many and varied. While issuing the Rule, only a limited Rule was issued confined to certain points. When the matter came up for hearing, certain other points were raised and the petition was allowed to be amended. At the final hearing, however, only one point was raised and this is in relation to Section 7(1) of the said Act. A challenge was also thrown at Rule 4(2) (a) of the Rules framed under the Act but very little was heard of it during the arguments. Incidentally, it was stated that Sections 2(14) and 2 (16) of the Act were also bad inasmuch as there was an attempt to extend the scope of the Agricultural Income-tax Act beyond the permissible limits. Mr. Das appearing on behalf of the petitioner has formulated the challenge under Section 7(1) of the Act, as follows: Reference is first made to Article 366(1) of the Constitution, which defines the words "agricultural income" as meaning agricultural income as defined for the purposes of the enactments relating to Indian Income-tax. Thus, the words "agricultural income" as used in the Constitution must be given that meaning. Under the 7th Schedule annexed to the Constitution, the relevant item fa item 46 in List II, that is to say, the State List. The item reads as "Tax on agricultural income". Article 246(3) gives exclusive right to the legislature o any state to make laws of such state or any part thereof with respcct to any of the matters enumerated in List II under the 7th Schedule. Thus, there can be no doubt that the State Legislature has the exclusive right to legislate on the matter of taxation in respect of agricultural income. What is argued is that the words "agricultural income" are defined in the Constitution. Therefore, the State Legislature can legislate under this heading on a subject which comes within the four corners of the definition. It cannot, of its own motion, extend the meaning, thereby extending its own jurisdiction. That this proposition is sound is not even contested by the other side. It is therefore perhaps not necessary to refer to certain Supreme Court decisions which have been cited, but I may just make a passing mention of one of them. In Commissioner of Income-tax, West Bengal v. Be-noy Kumar Sahas Roy, Bhagwati, J. said as follows: