SANTOSH KUMAR CHANDER SHEIKHAR Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS judgment will dispose of Civil Writs Nos. 3598, 8214, 3697, 4168, 7278, 8290, 8252 to 8262, 8283, 8245, 8247, 8215 and 8216 of 1976, as common questions of law and fact are involved in all of them.

(2.) FOR facility of reference, the facts giving rise to Writ Petition No. 3598 of 1976 may briefly be stated as under: The petitioner-firm is a licensee of the country liquor vends of village Kandhala Jattan and Deriwala in the area of Panchayat Samiti, Tanda, Tehsil Dasuya, District Hoshiarpur. These vends were auctioned in favour of the petitioner-firm on 20th March, 1976, by the Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Jullundur, exercising powers of the Collector under the Punjab Excise Act.

(3.) THE aforementioned notification and the levy of tax made by the Samiti have been challenged, inter alia, on the ground that the auction of the vends having been conducted on 20th March, 1976 and the sale price of bottled liquor having been fixed by the State Government, no further tax could have been levied by the Samiti on the sale of liquor. The impugned tax was a fee and since there was absence of an element of quid pro quo, the same should be held as illegal. If it is held that the impugned levy was a tax, the same could not be imposed because the State Government had exempted the levy of sales tax on liquor. In the course of arguments, constitutional validity of Section 66 of the Act was also challenged on the ground that the legislature had completely abdicated its essential legislative functions in favour of the executive Government by allowing it to authorise the levy of any tax even though the same had not been quantified. It was further submitted that Section 67 (2) of the Act envisaged taxes to be imposed on persons or property only and the impugned tax having been imposed on the incidence of sale was outside the scope of the Act. The last mentioned arguments though not mentioned in the writ petition were allowed by us to be raised because they were based on pure questions of law and we propose to dispose them of first of all.