RANCHI TIMBER TRADERS ASSOCIATION Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) CWJC No. 2201/92 (R) is filed at the instance of M/s. Ranchi Timber Traders Association (Petitioner no.1) and another person, Petitioner no.1 of this case is a society registered under the Societies Registration Act and describes itself as an association of members engaged in the sale and purchase of "cut and finished timber". CWJC Nos. 432/1992 (R) and 2777/1992 (R) are similarly filed at the instance of different saw mills and their proprietors and persons carrying on business in timber.

(2.) IN all the three writ petitions question is raised regarding the validity of the gazette notification fixing the rate of cess at three percentum on the sale price of forest produce timber. Also come under challenge the demands of cess made against (he petitioners on "cut and finished timber" purchased by them on the basis of the impugned notification.

(3.) MR . Merathia, learned G.P. II submitted at the outset that the points raised in these writ petitions were directly covered by the decision of this court in M/s. Bajrangbali Saw Mill vs. State of Bihar and others, 1993 (2) P.L.J.R. 512 In the case of Bajrangbali Saw Mill a bench of this court (of which one of us Aftab Alam, J. was a member) held that cut and finished timber was amenable to the levy of cess on the basis of the impugned notification dated 28.8.1991. In coming to this inference the decision placed reliance on an earlier division bench judgment in Someshwar Prasad vs. State of Bihar, 1974 PLJR 387 which was re -affirmed by a full bench judgment in M/s. The Western India Match Company Limited vs. Collector, Cess, Bet -tiah, 1981 PLJR 440.