TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2018 (5) TMI 2048
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....radesh Municipal Limits Rules, 1996 (for short the 'Rules') were published on 7.3.1997. Such Rules have been framed in exercise of the powers conferred under section 355 read with sections 127 and 129 of the Madhya Pradesh Municipalities Act, 1961 (for short "the Act"). The relevant provisions of the Act read as under: "127. Taxes to be imposed under this Act.(1) For the purpose of this Act, the Council shall, subject to any general or special order which the State Government may make in this behalf, impose in the whole or in any part of the Municipal Area, the following taxes namely:-- (a) a tax payable by the owners of buildings or lands situated within the city with reference to the gross annual letting value of the buildings or lands, called the property tax, subject to the provisions of sections 126, 127-A and 129. (b) *a water tax, in respect of lands and building to which a water supply is furnished from or which are connected by means of pipe with municipal water works. *(b) [Deleted by MP Act No. 15 of 2010 on 19.4.2010] (c) a general sanitary cess, for the construction and maintenance of public latrines and for removal ....
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....sembly in terms of section 356 of the Act, which reads as under: "356. General provision regarding rules - (1) All rules for which provision is made in this Act shall be made by the State Government and shall be consistent with this Act. (2) A rule may be general for all Municipalities or for all Municipalities not expressly exempted from its operation, or may be special for the whole or any part of any one or more Municipalities, as the State Government may direct. (3) All rules shall be subject to publication in the gazette. (4) All rules shall be laid on the table of the Assembly. (5) In making any rule the State Government may direct that a breach thereof shall be punishable with fine which may extend to five hundred rupees." 2. As per the petitioner, there is a discrepancy in Hindi version of the Gazette Notification and that of English version. The discrepancy is that as per English version in case of submission of wrong return, "the amount equal to ten times of tax shall be payable" while according to Hindi version, "in addition to tax payable, the penalty shall be equivalent to 10 times of the tax amount". In other wo....
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..... Board of Revenue and others (AIR 1976 All 420) (hereinafter referred to as 'Mata Badal Pandey-II') wherein it has been held that where the official language is Hindi, in case of conflict, the Hindi version will prevail. 8. Ms. Agrawal has also referred to Division Bench judgment of the Himachal Pradesh High Court in Civil Writ Petition No. 393/2002 (Gauri Devi v. State of Himachal Pradesh and another) decided on 25.6.2002, wherein considering the Himachal Pradesh Official Language Act, 1975, it was held that it is only language in which the bills introduced and are passed by the Legislature, that version needs to be followed. Thus, the Hindi version will prevail in terms of Article 348 of the Constitution. 9. Ms. Agrawal also referred to the judgment of the Full Bench rendered in Mangilal Suratsingh and another v. Board of Revenue, MP, Gwalior and others (1983 JLJ 385 : 1983 RN 2005 : 1983 MPLJ 254); and a Single Bench judgment in the case of Satyabhan Singh Jadon v. State of MP and others [1997 (2) MPLJ 487] to contend that it is the Hindi version which will prevail. 10. Before we examine the respective arguments of the learned counsel for the parties, certain C....
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.... translation of the same in the English language published under the authority of the Governor of the State in the Official Gazette of that State shall be deemed to be the authoritative text thereof in the English language under this article. 11. The Madhya Pradesh Official Languages Act, 1950 [XXIV of 1950] and the Madhya Bharat Official Language Act, Samvat 2007 (67 of 1950), were repealed when The Madhya Pradesh Official Language Act, 1957 (for short the 'Language Act') was published in the official Gazette on 7th February, 1958. The provisions of the Act were to come into force as may be notified by the State Government in terms of section 4 of the Act, from time to time. Relevant extracts from the Language Act reads as under: THE MADHYA PRADESH OFFICIAL LANGUAGE ACT, 1957 4. Language to be used in Bills, etc.-(1) The Language to be used in,- (a) all Bills to be introduced or amendment thereto to be moved in each House of the State Legislature; (b) all Acts passed by each House of the State Legislature; (c) all Ordinances promulgated under Article 213 of the Constitution of India; (d) all orders, rules, regulation....
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....t of English version has come before the Courts from time to time. Some of the judgments from Allahabad High Court are noticed hereinafter. 14. A Division Bench of Allahabad High Court in a judgment rendered in Haji Lal Mohammad Biri Works v. Sales Tax Officer, [AIR 1959 All 208], examined Article 348(1) to hold that English version of an Act in the State of Uttar Pradesh has merely a status of an authoritative text in the original text and that in case of conflict, Hindi version would prevail. It was held as under: "..........On the language of section 3 of the 1958 Act there was some argument by Shri Jagdish Sarup, learned counsel for one of the petitioners, that, in this section, the expression 'in the form in which they were in force immediately before the commencement of this Act' should be read as qualifying the words 'the notifications' and should not be read as qualifying the expression, 'the said sections' which occurs a little earlier. To resolve this doubt, we went for the U.P. Gazette in which this Act was published in Hindi. Hindi has been adopted as (sic) language by the U.P. Legislature. Under Article 348(3) of the Constit....
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....bad High Court in Jaswant Sugar Mills Limited's case (supra), held that both the Hindi and the English versions are authorised and both of them can be looked into and put to official use and it is only in a case of divergence in the two versions that the English version may reign supreme. "8.....From what I have said above, it is clear that both the Hindi version as also the English translation of a Bill, Act, etc., are valid. There is no competition between the two. It is only in case of conflict or divergence between the two versions that the question of authoritative text comes in. The view that I am taking finds support from a Division Bench decision of this Court in the case of Haji Lal Mohammad Biri Works v. Sales Tax Officer, AIR 1959 All. 208; (1959) 10 STC 424, and the decision of their Lordships of the Supreme Court in J.K. Jute Mills Co., Ltd. v. State of Uttar Pradesh, (1961) 12 STC 429 at p. 435; (AIR 1961 SC 1534 at p. 1538), where the Allahabad case mentioned above was approved of. In the Supreme Court case the Validation Act was published both in Hindi and in English. A question arose as to whether the Hindi version could be used to clear what ....
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....sed in a language other than the English language by a State Legislature, an authoritative translation thereof in the English language has to be provided and that translation shall for the purposes of Clause (1)(b) be deemed to be the authoritative text thereof. Indeed, it will be beyond the competence of a State Legislature to provide that the authoritative text of its Act and Ordinance etc., shall be in a language other than the English language, because such a power vests only in the Parliament Thus, when there is a conflict between the English version of a Statute of a State Legislature and its version in a local language, the version in English language will prevail over the version in the local language. A Division Bench of this Court in Saghir Ahmad v. Govt. of the State of U.P., AIR 1954 All 257 while referring to Article 348 of the Constitution has at page 278 in paragraph 83 observed: "In view of this provision of the Constitution the notification appearing in English must prevail over the notification appearing in Hindi." A Full Bench of this Court in Jaswant Sugar Mills Ltd., Meerut v. Presiding Officer, Industrial Tribunal (III) U.P. Allahabad, AIR 19....
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....ext and reliance placed thereon". The relevant extract from the order reads as under: "10. Whenever there exists an ambiguity in an enactment, well established rules of interpretation are applied to find out the intention of the Legislature. Whenever the question arises whether the word 'and' used in the provision should be read as 'or' or vice versa, the question is one of 'doubt or ambiguity'. But, where, the words are unambiguous, no question of interpretation thereof really arises. 11. We are, therefore, of opinion that where there is some doubt of ambiguity in any provision in the authoritative English text, it is permissible to look into the Hindi text to remove the doubt or ambiguity. We accordingly answer the question referred to this Bench in the affirmative." In a separate but concurring order recorded by Hon'ble Shri Justice K.B. Asthana, the Court held as under: "12. I have had the advantage of reading the opinion of the learned Chief Justice. While agreeing with him in answering the question referred in the affirmative, with profound respect, I am unable to endorse to the full extent the approach and the reasoning ....
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....mere assumption and thus arrived at an erroneous result. The task of an interpreter is to find out the true intention of the Legislature from the words used by it. The Legislature uses Hindi words. The text of the law in Hindi, therefore, must be seen to find out the true intention of the Legislature. The only effect of Article 348 of the Constitution is that the authorised translation of the Act into English language will also be deemed to depict the same intention of the Legislature as depicted by the Hindi text. This functional approach appears to me the only proper approach. Certainly it will be against all canons of interpretation of Statutes if merely by relying on English translation the law is administered and the result arrived at is contradictory or different to that which the Hindi text of the law manifests. To avoid the perils of the ephemeral doctrine of preference, in my judgment, the only correct answer to the problem that poses itself in such a situation is to adopt a rule of interpretation that in the English translation of the Hindi text of the Act whenever there appears a doubt on a plane reading of the English words as to the true intention of the Legislature, c....
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....down by this Court in the case of Haji Lal Mohammad Bidi Works v. Sales Tax Officer (AIR 1959 All 208) (supra), that if there was an apparent ambiguity in the translation of the Act enacted in Hindi then that can be resolved by making use of the Hindi text. We doubted the correctness of the Full Bench case of Ram Rati v. Gam Samaj (AIR 1974 All 106) (FB) (supra). The matter was then referred to a Full Bench of seven Judges, which has now declared that where there is some doubt or ambiguity in any provision in the authoritative English text, it is permissible to look into the Hindi text to remove the doubt of ambiguity. Since in the Hindi version, the phrase used is 'kurki Ya Neelam', the ambiguity in the English authoritative text due to use of the conjunction 'and' which ambiguity was canvassed before the two Division Benches of this Court but now we can resolve it by taking recourse to the Hindi text and it would be"WP-1249-2017 legitimate to read the phrase in the authoritative English text as 'attachment or sale'. The legislature itself has used such phrase in section 19(2) and (6) of the 1934 Act." 20. The issue as to the conflict between Hindi versi....
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.... so plain and the grammar and the sense of the thing so clear that it is not necessary to go to the Hindi version at all. When one contrasts the definition of "sale" with the definition of "contract", it is quite clear that the latter part of the definition of 'turnover' i.e., the nine words following "supplied" are meant to qualify "supplied" only...." 21. The Full Bench of this Court in Mangilal Suratsingh's case (supra), was dealing with interpretation of Madhya Bharat Revenue Administration and Ryotwari Land Revenue and Tenancy Act, Samvat 2007, as amended by Act No. 18 of 1952 (Samvat 2009)], substituting the provision of second appeals. The State Act was enacted after Hindi was adopted as the official language of the State by the erstwhile State of Madhya Bharat by enacting the Madhya Bharat Official Language Act, Samvat 2007 (No 67 of 1950). "5. ... In view of the aforesaid decision of the Supreme Court, it must be held that where Hindi has been adopted as a language by the Legislature of a State, Hindi and English are both authorized versions, and it is permissible to rely on the Hindi version in case of a doubt. 6. In view of the aforesaid,....
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..... Since Under section 4 of the Act, the notifications are published in Hindi and English and both of them are authenticated one, the Hindi version shall prevail over English version by virtue of section 4 of the Act. If there is any advertence in the translation in the English, it would be just and proper that Hindi version should be followed." 23. The matter again came for consideration before the Full Bench of this Court in Technofab Engineering Limited v. Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited and others, [2015 (3) JLJ 326 : 2015 (4) MPLJ 426]. The Court held as under: "23. The Full Bench of our High Court in the case of Mangilal and another v. Board of Revenue, M.P. and others, 1983 JLJ 385 (Full Bench) has authoritatively held that after the enactment of the Madhya Pradesh Official Language Act, 1957, the Hindi version published, be relied in a case of doubt. The Full Bench has considered the provisions of the Madhya Pradesh Official Language Act as also Article 345 of the Constitution of India while answering the question considered in that behalf. 24. Our attention was invited to the decision of the Division Bench of our High Court in the case of Vikramsingh a....
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....present case, which was dealing with a Central Act. In terms of Article 343 of the Constitution of India, the official language of the Union is Hindi but in terms of Sub-Clause (2), the English language shall continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union for which it was being used immediately before such commencement. The Official Language Act, 1963 has been enacted by the Union wherein the English continues to be the language for all official purposes of the Union even after expiry of 15 years, section 5 of the said Act of 1963 requires a translation in Hindi to be published under the authority of the President in the official gazette. Therefore, Parliamentary statutes are in English whereas the a authorised version is in Hindi, which is a case of reverse proposition than what is in the present case. Similarly, the decision of the Supreme Court rendered in the case of Prabhat Kumar Sharma (supra), is again a case of Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order 1950 as amended by the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Order (Amendment) Act, 1976. Since the said judgment again pertains to Central Act, which is required to be in English though the translation has to be ....
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....s the State to adopt any one or more languages in the State or Hindi as a language or cause to be used for all or any of the official purposes of the State. The Language Act has been enacted in terms of Article 345 of the Constitution, but the authorized version of a statute in English is prescribed to be only in terms of sub-clause (3) of Article 348. Therefore, when the Full Bench of this Court in Mangilal Suratsingh's case (supra), and Technofab Engineering Limited's case (supra), have considered the conflict between the statute in Hindi and Authorized Version in English, the Court was conscious of the Article 348 of the Constitution. 29. In view of the aforesaid judgments, we find that the language of the State being Hindi and the Act having been passed in Hindi, the English version of such text in Hindi is an act of the Executive, which will not prevail over the legislation enacted by the State Legislature in Hindi. Therefore, in case of conflict between Hindi version and the English version, the Legislative version would prevail rather than the authorized version published under the authority of the Hon'ble Governor as an Executive function. In view thereof, we....