TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1996 (1) TMI 431
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....pality so as to include therein the village of Raipura and it invited objections thereto. On 16th October, 1958, in exercise of powers conferred by Section 5(1) of the 1951 Act, the State Government extended the limits of the Kota municipality to include therein the village of Ummedganj. This inclusion was challenged in a writ petition filed before the Rajasthan High Court. Pending the decision thereof, on 2nd May, 1960, the State Government excluded the village of Ummedganj from the said municipal limits. On 17th August, 1960, a Full Bench of the Rajasthan High Court held that Ummedganj was not validly included within the limits of the Kota town municipality inasmuch as the mandatory provisions in that behalf had not been followed. It appears that the villages of Raipura and Ummedganj were treated as falling within the municipal limits of Kota and octroi was collected from the appellants. Realizing, in April 1974, that the levy and realization of octroi by the Kota Municipality (the 2nd respondent) was illegal, the appellants filed a suit in the court of the Munsiff, Kota, seeking a permanent injunction restraining the Kota Municipality from levying or collecting octroi from it....
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....me, with reasons therefore in writing, to the State Government within two months from the date of the said proclamation. (2) No notification under section 4 shall be issued by the State Government, unless the objections, if any, so submitted are, in its opinion sufficient or invalid." The relevant portion of the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Validating Act reads thus : "1. According to the provisions of the Rajasthan Municipalities Act, 1959, the village of Raipura was never included in the limits of the Kota Municipality and though the village of Ummedganj was included therein but it was thereafter excluded from these limits. However, the Kota Municipality to all intents and for all purposes treated them as existing within its limits. During the period from 1958 to 1974 elections were held and taxes were levied in relation to these villages as existing within the limits of the Kota Municipality. These actions were challenged in law courts. Doubts have, therefore, arisen as to the validity of the continued existence of these villages within these limits and as to the legality of the action taken or things done, including the levy and collection of taxes within th....
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....nicipal Act or under any law for the time being in force, by treating these villages as existing within the limits of the Municipality at Kota, shall be deemed always to have been lawfully levied and collected and no claim for their refund shall arise or shall be deemed ever to have arisen; as if the said villages had legally existed within the limits of the Municipality at Kota. By reason of Section 4, no court is permitted to question the validity of anything done or power exercised on the ground that the villages of Raipura and Ummedganj were not within the municipal limits of Kota. Sections 6 and 7 read thus : "6. Cancellation of notifications with retrospective effect. - As from the commencement of this Act, all notifications from time to time issued under the Municipal Act or the Panchayat Act, providing for the exclusion of the villages of Raipura and Ummedganj from the limits of the Municipality at Kota or for their inclusion in any Panchayat Circle, shall be deemed to have ceased to have effect and be cancelled as if they never came into force. 7. Act to have over-riding effect. -....
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.... the tax already collected to stand under the re-enacted law. Sometimes the legislature gives its own meaning and interpretation of the law under which the tax was collected and by legislative fiat makes the new meaning binding upon courts. The legislature may follow any one method or all of them and while it does so it may neutralize the effect of the earlier decision of the court which becomes ineffective after the change of the law. Whichever method is adopted it must be within the competence of the legislature and legal and adequate to attain the object of validation. If the legislature has the power over the subject-matter and competence to make a valid law, it can at any time make such a valid law and make it retrospectively so as to bind even past transactions. The validity of a Validating law, therefore, depends upon whether the legislature possesses the competence which it claims over the subject-matter and whether in making the validation it removes the defect which the courts had found in the existing law and makes adequate provisions in the Validating law for a valid imposition of the tax." (Emphasis supplied.) Mr. S.J. Sorabjee, learned counsel for the Kota Mu....
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....S.C.R. 700. The Explanations to Rules 9 and 49 of the Central Excise Rules, 1944, had provided that excisable goods produced or manufactured in any place or premises at an intermediate stage and consumed or utilised for the manufacture of another commodity in a continuous process would be deemed to have been removed from such place or premises immediately before such consumption or utilisation. This court said that it was well settled that a deeming provision was an admission of the non-existence of the fact deemed. Therefore, in view of the deeming provision under the Explanations, although the goods which were produced or manufactured at an intermediate stage and, thereafter, consumed or utilised in the integrated process for the manufacture of another commodity were not actually removed, they had to be regarded as having been removed. It is to be noted that what is to be deemed is a matter of fact; there is a "deeming fiction". It is also to be noted that when a fact is to be deemed, its consequences and incidents are also to be deemed; that is to say, what follows from the deemed fact is also to be deemed. Mr. Sorabjee relied upon the judgment in R.L. Arora vs. State of Uttar P....
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....ndment and Validation Act, 1967, amended Section 5-A of the principal Act to allow for the making of more than one report in respect of land which had been notified under Section 4(1). It also amended Section 6 so that different declarations made from time to time in respect of different parcels of land covered by the same notification under Section 4(1) were permissible. The Amendment and Validation Act, 1967, also validated all acquisitions which had been rendered invalid by reason of the judgment in V.P. Sharma's case. The Amendment and Validation Act, 1967, was challenged. This Court rejected the challenge. It observed : "All these decisions lay down that the power to legislate for validating actions taken under statute which were not sufficiently comprehensive for the purpose is only ancillary or subsidiary to legislate on any subject within the competence of the legislature and such Validating Acts cannot be struck down merely because courts of law have declared actions taken earlier to be invalid for want of jurisdiction. Nor is there any reason to hold that in order to validate action wi....