WINE CENTRE Vs. STATE OF J&K

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner M/S Wine Centre through medium of this petition asserted that it was a licence holder of Vend No. 80-OFF at Link Road, Jammu; that by virtue of SRO-68, licence fee of Excise Vends was enhanced by the Government, from Rs.50,000.00 to Rs.5.00 lacs in the city of Jammu; that as a consequence of this enhancement, the petitioner did not find viable to run his Licence Vend at Link Road, Jammu and he informed the respondents that he is not in a position to run the shop there; that he filed an application for shifting of his premises from Link Road to Bus Stand; that for this period i.e from 1995 to 1997 his shop remain closed and no business was transacted by him.

(2.) It was further pleaded that in pursuance to the application filed by him, he was permitted to shift his premises from Link Road to Bus Stand, Jammu subject to the condition that the petitioner will clear all the outstanding i.e Licence Fee for the years 1995-96 to 1997-98; that being aggrieved of this condition, the petitioner filed a writ petition bearing OWP No. 298/1997, wherein at the interim stage, the petitioner was directed to deposit an amount of Rs.6.00 lacs with the Excise Commissioner for the present and execute an undertaking to his satisfaction that in case he fails in the writ petition and in case the litigation pending on the raising of the Licence Fee goes in favour of the Revenue, he would deposit the remaining amount found due within six months after the outcome of the subject matter; that the said writ petition came to be disposed of by this Court on 26/2/2002 with a direction that the petitioner would prefer a representation with the respondents seeking relief from the Excise Commissioner in respect of the contention raised by him, however, it was alleged that the representation which had already been filed was not considered by the Excise Commissioner till date.

(3.) Next it was pleaded, that in the meanwhile SRO-64 and SRO 68 were challenged by some of the petitioners before this Court; that vide Govt. Order No. 123-F of 1998 dtd. 7/4/1998 thereby uniform Licence Fee of Rs.3.00 lacs should be charged from all the licensee with the condition that the outstanding amount shall be recovered in a maximum of 36 monthly installments beginning from April 1998 and no installment shall be less than 1/36th of the total amount of arrears subject to further condition that the interest @ 2% per month shall be charged from 1st of April, 1998 till the outstanding is fully recovered, with further stipulation that no interest shall be charged from the date of stay granted by the Court to 31/3/1998, as such, the petitioner's petition calling into question SRO-68 of 1995 was disposed of vide order dtd. 26/2/2002 and the petitioner deposited the balance amount of Rs.8.50 lacs with the respondents which was the Licence Fee for the period from 1995 to 1997.