AI Drafter 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1942 (3) TMI 16
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....d, with the previous sanction of the Provincial Government, to impose any "tax which the Provincial Legislature has power to impose in the Province under the Government of India Act, 1935". In April, 1938, the Appellant who, under Section 238 of the Municipal Act, had been exercising the powers of the superseded Municipality of Lahore published a notification imposing octroi duties at varying rates on goods imported into Lahore, and salt was one of the commodities specified in the schedule under the heading "articles of food and drink In October 1939, the Respondent brought two maunds of salt into the municipal limits and, with the evident object of making it a test case, he paid the duty under protest and later applied for refund of the am....
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....s described as the Respondent. The provisions of Section 18 of the Punjab Municipal Act relating to the corporate character of the Committee and the manner of suing must be read subject to the provisions of Section 238(2) which lays down the consequences of a supersession. It may be (as held in Mahamahopadyaya Rangachariar v. The Municipal Council of Kumbakonam I.L.R. [1906] Mad. 539, that a supersession has not the effects of a dissolution and that when another Committee is constituted in the place of the superseded Committee, it is a revival of the old corporation and not the creation of a new one. But during the period when the order of supersession is in force, the statute makes it clear that all the members of the Committee vacate thei....
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....Provincial Legislature has expressly been denied the power to make laws with respect to salt, since salt" is one of the matters enumerated in List I. Both these contentions were upheld by the learned Judge who dealt with the caso in the Higli Court and he was also of the opinion that Section 140(1) of the Constitution Act lent some support to this view. 4. In support of this appeal, it has been contended by the Advocate-General of the Punjab that the learned Judge "erred in treating entry No. 47 in List I. as the source of the Central Legislature's authority to impose any duty or tax on salt, and that he also erred in relying upon Section 140 as though it were a charging section. By a reference to various entries in Lists I and II co....
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.... 45 of List I. It is true that Section 140 of the Constitution Act is not a charging section and that it occurs in a chapter dealing with the distribution of revenues between the Federation and the federal units. But the express mention in that section of "duties on salt" separately from "federal duties of excise and "export duties" rather suggests that duties on salt were not contemplated as falling under entries Nos. 44 and 45 of List L' Counsel suggested that the separate reference to duties on salt might have been made with a view to include import duties thereon under the heads of revenue divisible among the federal units. This is a possible explanation; but it is nevertheless difficult to get rid of the impression that duties on s....
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..... It is on the other hand quite conceivable that, even without the power of taxation, Parliament should have desired that the Central Government and the Central Legislature should retain exclusive control over salt and to prohibit any kind of interference with it by Provincial Legislatures. It is, for instance, common knowledge that public opinion in this country has always insisted that salt should be made available to the people at the lowest possible price; but the recognition of a power in the Provincial Legislature to impose duties on salt, whether for the benefit of provincial revenues or for the benefit of local authorities, might materially affect the policy of the Central Government in this respect. 7. It is noteworthy that in r....