TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2016 (10) TMI 1229
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.... Markets (Amendment) Act, 2015 (for brevity, "the Act"). 2. The High Court, for the sake of convenience, has stated the facts as adumbrated in W.P. No. 11512 of 2015 and, therefore, we shall advert to the facts of the said writ petition. Needless to say, the averments in all the writ petitions are fundamentally the same. 3. The Petitioners in the said writ petition were appointed as Chairmen of Agricultural Market Committees by the State for a term of 3 years. It is worthy to note that vide G.O. Rt. No. 435 dated 04.03.2013 the Government of Andhra Pradesh in exercise of powers conferred Under Section 6(1) read with Sub-sections (1) and (2) of the Section 5 of the Act constituted the Agricultural Market Committee, Kubeer, Adilabad District with one B. Chandra Shekar as Chairman and others as members. It was mentioned that the said B. Chandra Shekar was nominated as Chairman and one D. Dattaram as Vice-Chairman and 16 others as members. Similar notifications were issued in respect of other Agricultural Market Committees vide notifications dated 04.03.2013, 31.08.2013, 18.11.2013, 27.11.2013 and after such nomination the persons who were nominated as Chairman, Vice-Chairman and....
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....ers and perform the functions of the Market Committee until the Market Committee is re-constituted in accordance with the provisions of Section 5 of the principal Act as amended by this Ordinance. [Emphasis added] 6. After the Ordinance was issued, the Agriculture and Cooperation (MKT. I) Department vide G.O.MS. No. 11 dated 18.08.2014 passed the following order: In pursuance of an Ordinance issued in the reference 3rd read above and in accordance with Clause (3) of the Andhra Pradesh (Agricultural Produce and Livestock) Markets (Amendment) Ordinance, 2014, all the members, Vice-Chairmen and Chairmen of the existing Market Committees shall cease to hold office. The Commissioner and Director of Agricultural Marketing, Telangana, Hyderabad is directed to appoint a person or persons with immediate effect to exercise the powers and perform the functions of each Market Committee until the Market Committee is re-constituted in accordance with the provisions of Section 5 of the Telangana (Agricultural Produce and Livestock) Markets Act, 1966 as amended by an Ordinance in the 3rd read above. 2. The Commissioner and Director of Agricultural Marketing, Telangana....
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....nd, of course, it is a not a singular candidate but a group of candidates who were equally aggrieved and equally placed and those were clubbed in one class and treated differently from other groups in the same office viz., future members and office bearers of the market committee. xxxxx We, therefore, accepting the contention of the learned Counsel for the writ Petitioners while overruling that of the learned Advocate General hold Clause-3 of the said Ordinance is not constitutionally valid. Accordingly, the same is struck down. In view of this declaration and striking down, consequential Government Order issued pursuant thereto is also void and illegal, the same is also struck down and that the Petitioners and each of them shall be restored to their respective positions. We accordingly direct the Government to do so forthwith. 9. After the judgment of the High Court in Writ Petition No. 24877 of 2014 and connected matters, the Government of Telangana issued Ordinance No. 1 of 2015 dated 13.02.2015 to amend Section 5 of the Act. The Ordinance was challenged before the High Court which issued notice and directed status quo to be maintained wit....
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.... be a trader: Provided further that a non-official member of the market committee shall cease to hold his office if he absents himself from three consecutive meetings of the committee, including meetings which for want of quorum could not be held. Explanation: For the purposes of the second proviso, no meeting of the market committee from which a member absents himself shall be counted against him if due notice of that meeting was not given to him. x x x xx (5) The Government may, by notification, remove the Chairman or Vice-Chairman, who in their opinion willfully omits or refuses to carry out or disobeys the provisions of this Act or any Rules or bye-laws of lawful orders issued hereunder or abuses his position or the power vested in him, after giving him an opportunity for explanation, and the said notification shall contain a statement of the reasons of the Government for the action taken. (6) Any person removed under Sub-section (5) from the office of Chairman or Vice-Chairman shall be ineligible for appointment to either of the said offices, until the date of next reconstitution of the market committee unde....
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....015 received the assent of the Governor on 13th April, 2015. Sub-section (2) of Section 1 provides that it shall be deemed to have come into force with effect from 01.01.2012. The amendment to Section 5 of the principal Act is as follows: (1) In Sub-section (1)- (a) in the opening paragraph, for the word "eighteen" the word "fourteen" shall be substituted; (b) in Clause (i), for the word "eleven", the word "eight" and for the word "appointed", the word "nominated" shall be substituted respectively; (c) in the second proviso to Clause (i) for the word "five", the word "three" shall be substituted; (d) in Clause (ii) for the word "three", the word "two" and for the word "appointed", the word "nominated" shall be substituted respectively. (e) in Clause (iii), for the word "appointed", the word "nominated" shall be substituted. (2) In Sub-section (2), for the word "appointed"....
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....pointment", "appointed" and "appoint" are used in the principal Act, they have been substituted with the words "nomination", "nominated" and "nominate" respectively. The provision relating to validation, which is a part of Section 33, reads as follows: Notwithstanding anything contained in any provisions of this Act, the members of the Committee, including Chairman and Vice-Chairman, whose term expiring under the provisions of this Act, their continuation in the office from the date of expiring of their term, are validated in all respects, as if they deemed to have been validly nominated for the said period. 16. Before the High Court, as the impugned order depicts, the principal challenge was to Section 5 of the Act whereby the term of the market committee was reduced from three years to one year by giving retrospective effect in the Amendment Act. It was contended before the High Court that the Amendment Act had no rationale or nexus to the objects sought to be achieved through the retrospective operation of the Amendment Act and Section 5(3) which has reduced the term is ex facie illegal, discriminatory and suffers from vice of absolute unreasonableness. A contention ....
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....war, learned Counsel for the Appellants and Mr. V. Giri, learned senior Counsel with Mr. S. Udaya Kumar Sagar, learned Counsel for the Respondents. 22. Having heard learned Counsel for the parties, we are disposed to think, the following issues arise for delineation: a) Whether the State Legislature could have legislated for the period prior to coming into existence of the State? b) Whether the base of earlier judgment has been removed to erase the effect of the judgment? c) Whether by virtue of the amendment the vested rights have been affected? d) Whether the amended provisions suffer from the vice of the equality Clause as enshrined Under Article 14 of the Constitution? 23. We shall deal first point first. The Reorganization Act came into force on 02.06.2014. Submission is, prior to the said date, the legislature that was not in existence as an entity could not have legislated relating to some aspect that covers the prior period. The aforesaid submission should not detain us long. In M/s. Rattan Lal and Co. and Anr. etc v. The Assessing Authority, Patiala and Anr.: AIR 1970 SC 1742 the ....
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....ive and illegal. Granted legislative competence, it is not sufficient to declare merely that the decision of the Court shall not bind, for that tantamount to reversing the decision in exercise of judicial power which the Legislature does not possess or exercise. A court's decision must always bind unless the conditions on which it is based are so fundamentally altered that the decision could not have been given in the altered circumstances. Thereafter, the Court proceeded to state that validation of a tax so declared illegal may be done only if the grounds of illegality or invalidity are capable of being removed and are in fact removed and the tax thus made legal. The legislature does it many a way. One of the methods it may adopt is to give its own meaning and interpretation of the law under which tax was collected and by legislative fiat makes the new meaning binding upon courts. On such legislation being brought, it neutralizes the effect of the earlier decision as a consequence of which it becomes ineffective. The test of validity of a validating law depends upon whether the Legislature possesses the competence which it claims over the subject-matter and whether in making t....
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....s or group of coking coal mine specified in the second column of the said Schedule are required to be given by the Central Government to its owner under Sub-section (1) shall be deemed to be included, and deemed always to have included, the amount required to be paid to such owner in respect of coal in stock or other assets referred to in Clause (j) of Section 3 on the date immediately before the appointed day and no other amount shall be paid to the owner in respect of such coal or other assets. Section 19 was the validating provision. 26. The writ petition was filed questioning the validity of the said ordinance primarily on the ground that it purported to nullify the judgment rendered in the case of Central Coal Fields Ltd. v. Bhubaneswar Singh and Ors.: (1984) 4 SCC 429. The Court referred to the provisions and opined that: ...if Sub-section (2) as introduced by the Coal Mines Nationalisation Laws (Amendment) Act, 1986 in Section 10 had existed since the very inception, there was no occasion for the High Court or this Court to issue a direction for taking into account the price which was payable for the stock of coke lying on the date before the appoint....
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....ion of provisions of the enactment on which such judgment is based, with retrospective effect. 29. From the aforesaid authorities, it is settled that there is a demarcation between legislative and judicial functions predicated on the theory of separation of powers. The legislature has the power to enact laws including the power to retrospectively amend laws and thereby remove causes of ineffectiveness or invalidity. When a law is enacted with retrospective effect, it is not considered as an encroachment upon judicial power when the legislature does not directly overrule or reverse a judicial dictum. The legislature cannot, by way of an enactment, declare a decision of the court as erroneous or a nullity, but can amend the statute or the provision so as to make it applicable to the past. The legislature has the power to rectify, through an amendment, a defect in law noticed in the enactment and even highlighted in the decision of the court. This plenary power to bring the statute in conformity with the legislative intent and correct the flaw pointed out by the court, can have a curative and neutralizing effect. When such a correction is made, the purpose behind the same is not to....
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....vernment in consultation with the Director of Marketing from among certain categories of growers of agricultural produce, owners of livestock and products of livestock in the notified area. The Chairmen and the Vice-Chairmen were appointed from amongst its members by the Government in consultation with the Director of Marketing. As has been stated earlier, the word "appointed" has been substituted as "nominated". Submission of Mr. Rao, learned senior Counsel appearing for the Appellants is that by such an amendment the vested right of the Appellants has been affected. It is noticeable that under the scheme of the Act, the word "appointed" as was used in the earlier provision was really not an appointment which can be equated to a post under the service jurisprudence. The members were meant to be members for the purpose of composition of market committee. What is urged is that the members, the Chairmen and the Vice-Chairmen had a fixed term, who could be removed after inquiry or under certain conditions. Our attention has been drawn to Sub-section (5) of Section 6 but after the amendment the members had ceased to become members prior to expiry of their tenure, that is, three years. ....