Sri Ram vs Notified Area Committee Khatauli and Anr

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: supreme-court

Case Number: Writ Petition (civil) 535 of 1951

Decision Date: 27 February 1952

Coram: M.P. Sastri (CJ), M.C. Mahajan, B.K. Mukherjea, S.R. Das, N.C. Aiyar

Sri Ram filed a writ petition numbered 535 of 1951 before the Supreme Court of India, seeking relief against the Notified Area Committee of Khatauli and another respondent. The judgment was delivered on 27 February 1952 by Justice D. S., having been heard by a bench comprising Chief Justice M. P. Sastri, Justice M. C. Mahajan, Justice B. K. Mukherjea, Justice S. R. Das, and Justice N. C. Aiyar. The record shows that the factual matrix of this petition closely mirrors that of petition No. 132 of 1951, Mohammad Yasin v. Town Area Committee, Jalalabad, reported in AIR 1952 SC 115, with the principal distinction that the committee involved here, originally a Town Area Committee governed by the Uttar Pradesh Town Areas Act of 1914, was reconstituted as a Notified Area Committee effective 1 July 1949. The Court observed that the principal questions raised in the present petition had already been exhaustively addressed in the earlier decision and therefore required no repetition; only one additional point raised by the petitioner needed examination. After the conversion to a Notified Area Committee, the Commissioner of the Meerut Division issued a notification extending to the committee the provisions of sections 333 and 333A of the Uttar Pradesh Municipalities Act, 1916. The latter section stipulates that all taxes, fees, licences, fines or penalties imposed, prescribed or levied by the Town Area Committee are to be deemed as imposed by the Board in accordance with the Municipalities Act. Counsel for the respondents relied on this provision to support a bye-law that imposed a fee of one anna, to be shared equally between the purchaser and the seller, as a fee under section 294 of the Municipalities Act. Section 294 authorises the Board to levy a fee, fixed by bye-law, for any licence, sanction or permission that it is empowered or required to grant under the Act. An argument was advanced before the Court concerning whether section 294 contemplated a fixed lump-sum fee or an ad valorem fee calculated on the value of the goods bought and sold. The Court declined to opine on that interpretative issue, holding instead that the case could be disposed of on the straightforward ground that a fee of one anna per rupee, equally shared by buyer and seller, could not be regarded as a fee contemplated by section 294. Moreover, the Court noted that no provision of the Uttar Pradesh Municipalities Act, 1916, had been cited that would empower the Board to grant any licence, sanction or permission to a person for the purchase of fruit or vegetables within the limits of the notified area. In the premises, the

The Court observed that the revised bye-law identified as clause 8 (c) could not be sustained on the basis of Section 294 of the Uttar Pradesh Municipalities Act, because the statute does not confer authority on the municipal board to impose a fee of the character contemplated by that clause. In reaching this conclusion, the Court referred to the reasoning articulated in its earlier judgment concerning petition number 132 of 1951, Mohammad Yasin v. Town Area Committee Jalalabad, reported in the 1952 All India Reporter (Supreme Court) at page 115. The Court noted that the principles and analytical framework applied in that precedent were equally applicable to the present matter, and therefore the same grounds for decision could be adopted here. Consequently, the Court held that the present application should be granted, and it directed that an order be issued in precisely the same form as the order rendered in the cited earlier petition. The Court further ordered that the respondents to this petition be responsible for paying the costs incurred by the petitioner in the proceedings.