2005 (3) TMI 764

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.... KAPADIA, J. This civil appeal by grant of special leave is filed by assessee against the judgment and order dated 23.2.2000 of the Karnataka High Court in Writ Appeal No.7000 of 1999 upholding the constitutional validity of Karnataka Motor Vehicle Taxation (Amendment) Act, 8 of 1997 (hereinafter referred to as "the said 1997 Act"). The appellant was the owner of "Opel Astra" which was ta....

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....tted that the impugned 1997 Act, as amended, violated article 14 inasmuch as the said Act has made an unreasonable classification between the vehicles costing more than Rs. 6 lacs and vehicles costing less than Rs. 6 lacs. Learned counsel further contended that the motor vehicle taxes are compensatory in nature. Such taxes, according to the learned counsel, can only be levied on the basis of the c....

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....y 57 List-II of the seventh schedule to the Constitution, the levy cannot be struck down only on the ground that the incidence of the tax falls differently on different categories of the vehicles. The burden has to be distributed on different classes of vehicles or on different persons who owned the vehicles. How equitable such tax could fall on different persons is not for the Court to decide. La....