SUBHASH CHANDER AND CO Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE constitutional validity of Section 20 (5) of the Punjab General Sales Tax Act is the sole issue that has been debated in this set of nineteen connected writ petitions.

(2.) AS is manifest from the above, the question being pristinely legal, any reference to the facts is hardly of any relevance and it deserves notice that the Learned Counsel for the petitioner did not even remotely do so. However, to appreciate the contentions raised and noticed hereafter, it becomes necessary to recall albeit briefly the legislative history of the aforesaid provision.

(3.) NOW , it deserves highlighting at the outset that from the very inception of the statute, the requirement of the deposit of tax has been a necessary adjunct to the entertainment of any appeal by the assessee and if at all the rigour of this rule has been mellowed down by the amendments which have followed since its original enactment. It had to be conceded even by the Learned Counsel for the petitioner that the provision in its original and amended form has now held the field for a period of exactly three decades without ever having been successfully assailed on the ground of the vice of unconstitutionality.