Territorial classification in tax recovery and curative amendment principles under Article 14 validated statutory enforcement machinery.

Territorial classification in tax recovery was treated as constitutionally permissible where the statute adopted the existing State machinery for collecting certified income-tax arrears, because the differentiation had an intelligible basis and a rational nexus with recovery of a public demand. The Court also noted that a provision originally inconsistent with Article 14 is not necessarily extinguished for all purposes; once the discriminatory element is removed by valid amendment, the law may operate again in amended form. Applying that principle, the amended Bombay City land revenue arrest provision was held to have cured the unequal treatment by aligning the detention regime with the comparative law.

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Issues: (i) Whether section 46(2) of the Income-tax Act, 1922 was invalid under Article 14 of the Constitution because it adopted the recovery machinery of the several States, resulting in different coercive procedures for assessees in different territories; (ii) Whether section 13 of the Bombay City Land Revenue Act, 1876 was repugnant to Article 14, and if so, whether the 1954 amendment removed the constitutional defect.

Issue (i): Whether section 46(2) of the Income-tax Act, 1922 was invalid under Article 14 of the Constitution because it adopted the recovery machinery of the several States, resulting in different coercive procedures for assessees in different territories.

Analysis: The provision directed recovery of certified income-tax arrears as if they were arrears of land revenue and did not itself create two alternative recovery methods. The classification created by the statute was territorial, because assessees were dealt with according to the recovery machinery already existing in the State where recovery was pursued. Such territorial differentiation was held permissible where it rested on an intelligible differentia and had a rational relation to the object of recovering a public demand. The Court treated the adoption of State recovery procedures as a valid legislative technique and held that uniformity of recovery process was not constitutionally mandatory merely because the tax was a Union levy.

Conclusion: Section 46(2) was upheld and the challenge under Article 14 failed.

Issue (ii): Whether section 13 of the Bombay City Land Revenue Act, 1876 was repugnant to Article 14, and if so, whether the 1954 amendment removed the constitutional defect.

Analysis: The original form of section 13 permitted arrest and confinement on terms harsher than the corresponding provision applicable outside the City of Bombay. Assuming that this disparity rendered the provision void to the extent of inconsistency with Article 14, the Court held that such a law was not obliterated for all purposes and could be made operative again by a valid amendment. The amended proviso reduced the maximum detention period and brought the provision into line with the comparative regime, thereby removing the discriminatory element. The arrest warrant issued after the amendment was therefore governed by the amended law.

Conclusion: The amended section 13 was held not to offend Article 14, and the challenge to the arrest procedure failed.

Final Conclusion: The constitutional challenges to both the income-tax recovery provision and the Bombay City land revenue arrest provision were rejected, and the writ application could not be granted.

Ratio Decidendi: Territorial classification is valid when it bears a rational nexus to the statutory object, and a provision rendered inoperative by constitutional inconsistency may become effective again once the inconsistency is removed by amendment.

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