Retrospective deposit conditions for tax appeals can validly regulate a statutory appellate right without extinguishing it.

Section 217 of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, 1888, as amended, was upheld as constitutionally valid despite imposing a deposit requirement for entertaining and hearing appeals against ratable value and tax. The Court treated the right of appeal as a statutory vested right that may be retrospectively regulated by clear legislative language, and found that the deposit condition regulated the appellate remedy rather than extinguished it. The requirement was accepted as serving a public purpose by securing municipal revenue and preventing delay in recovery. The challenge based on deprivation of property, legislative intrusion into the judicial sphere, and absence of discretion to condone default therefore failed.

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Issues: Whether Section 217 of the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, 1888, as amended, was constitutionally valid, including the requirement of deposit as a condition for entertaining and hearing appeals against ratable value and tax.

Analysis: The right of appeal is a statutory and vested right, but it may be curtailed retrospectively by clear legislative provision. The amended section expressly imposed deposit requirements for pending and future appeals, and such conditions were treated as regulations on the exercise of the appellate right, not as its destruction. The deposit requirement was held to serve a public purpose by securing municipal revenue and preventing delay in recovery, and therefore did not offend the constitutional guarantee invoked by the petitioners. The Court also held that the levy was supported by the statute and that the deposit condition did not amount to unauthorized deprivation of property or an impermissible legislative intrusion into the judicial sphere. Harshness or absence of discretion to condone default was not a ground to invalidate the provision.

Conclusion: Section 217, as amended, was held constitutionally valid and the challenge failed.

Ratio Decidendi: A statute conferring a right of appeal may validly impose retrospective deposit conditions for its exercise, and such conditions are constitutionally permissible where they regulate the appellate remedy in furtherance of a public purpose without extinguishing the right itself.

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