BASANT SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Judgment will deal with an appeal filed under clause 10 of the Letters Patent by Basant Singh against the order of a Single Judge dismissing his petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution and also a petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution by Mohinder Singh which has been put up with the Letters Patent Appeal because the same point is involved.

(2.) BOTH the appellant and the petitioner are owners of motor trucks, Basant Singh being a resident of Ganga Nagar in Bikaner part of Rajasthan while Mohinder Singh is a resident of Jaipur. It is not disputed that both of them use their trucks for the carriage of goods from places in the State of Rajasthan to Delhi, and for the purpose of travelling between Rajasthan and Delhi it is necessary to pass for some distance through the territory of the State of Punjab. Basant Singh has a permit from the Bikaner Region authority Rajasthan State, and counter -signed by, the Jullundur and Ambala Regional authorities of Punjab State and of Delhi State, Mohinder Singh's permit is granted by the Regional Authority, Jaipur, and countersigned by the Regional Transport Authority, Ambala, and the Delhi Authority. Both of them have challenged the right of the Punjab State authorities to levy tax on the goods carried by them from Rajasthan to Delhi under the provisions of the Punjab Passengers & Goods Taxation Act of 1952. The levying of the tax is authorized by section 3 of the Act, Sub -section (1) of which starts with the words : "There shall be levied, charged and paid to the State Government a tax on all fare and freights in respect of all passengers carried and goods transported by motor vehicles at the rate of one -fourth of the value of the fare or freights," The relevant sub -section is (3), which reads -

(3.) IT seems to me that if the drafters of the Statute were aware of the existence of the converse case, as they evidently were, they were also aware of cases such as those of the petitioners in which the start of the journey is in one State, the termination in other and part of journey lies over a road in this State, and it seems to me astonishing that they did not make provision for such a case. It is no doubt tempting to accept the argument that sub -section (3) as it stands covers such cases, but the plain fact is that it does not. As the sub -section stands the words 'from any place outside the State to any place within the State or from any place within the State to any place outside the State' clearly refer to the starting point and termination of journeys. If the sub -section was intended to cover the cases of goods transported from one State to another State with an intervening passage over Punjab roads, there appears to me to be a clear case of an omission to express this intention and since tax can only be levied when duly authorised by law and taxing statutes have to be strictly construed an omission to cover a particular case amounts virtually to an exemption. It will therefore be necessary, if this in fact is the intention of the Legislature, to amend the Act accordingly, which can easily be done either by making a specific provision for proportionate tax to be imposed in such cases, or else by inserting some provision by which a vehicle passing through the Punjab on its way from one State to another State will be deemed to be carry goods or passengers from the place inside the State to a place outside the State As sub -section (3) stands at present I am of the opinion that cases like those of the petitioner and the appellant are not covered by it and I would accordingly accept the appeal of Basant Singh and the writ petition of Mohinder Singh and quash the assessment and recovery proceedings as unwarranted by law. The parties may be left to bear their own costs in both cases.