TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1985 (4) TMI 66
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....sion Bench of the Karnataka High Court in Writ Appeals Nos. 662 to 668 of 1982. In the writ petitions, the prayer is to strike down s. 7 of Karnataka Act No. 13 of 1982, ss. 2 and 3 of Karnataka Act No. 10 of 1984 and for a writ of mandamus to restrain the State of Karnataka from enforcing the said provisions against the petitioners in the writ petitions. This judgment will dispose of the appeals and the writ petitions. The facts, in brief, necessary to understand the genesis of the cases are as follows: Consequent upon the abolition of octroi by the State of Karnataka, which was the main source of revenue for the local bodies, the said State enacted the Karnataka Tax on Entry of Goods into Local Areas for Consumption, Use or Sale Therein Act, 1979 (for short " the 1979 Act "), in order to augment the resources of the local bodies. This Act came into force with effect from June 1, 1979, on which date it was gazetted. A batch of 1,590 writ petitions were filed in the Karnataka High Court by a large number of traders challenging the constitutional validity of this Act. Writ Petition No. 7039 of 1979 was one of them which was by Messrs Hansa Corporation, Bangalore. These writ petit....
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....authorities appointed under the Act issued notices under the Act to all the dealers including those who had filed writ petitions earlier, calling upon them to register themselves under the Act, to file returns and to pay the amounts of tax due by them under the original Act of 1979. Aggrieved by the said notices, the original writ petitioners again filed writ petitions before the High Court of Karnataka contending that the notices issued to them were bad inasmuch as the writ of mandamus issued in their favour by the High Court in the earlier judgment survived and was effective since the State had not filed appeals against them, and that the judgment of this court could rescue the State from taking proceedings only against the Hansa Corporation and not against them. The State met this contention with the plea that the judgment of this court was binding on all and no one could escape from it. The writ petitions were heard by a learned single judge. He dismissed them holding, among other things, that s. 3 of Act No. 1O of 1981 revived the 1979 Act and that action taken against the petitioners in the writ petitions was, therefore, valid. Appeals were filed against this judgment. A Div....
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....SC 2206, an order made by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir providing for reservation of posts for certain communities was challenged before this court as violative of art. 16 of the Constitution. This court accepted the challenge and invalidated the promotions of respondents Nos. 3 to 83 in that case. By its judgment, this court directed the State Government to device scheme consistent with the constitutional guarantee for reservation of appointment to posts and to pass appropriate orders, The State Government instead of complying with the directions given by this court, attempted to circumvent the same by continuing those whose promotions were invalidated, giving the posts a different name. The same petitioners again moved this court under art. 32 of the Constitution questioning the action of the State Government. The State Government justified its action contending that there were many persons who were not parties to the earlier writ petitions and who had been promoted prior to and/or subsequent to this court's decision and that they were not bound by the earlier judgment. This contention was repelled by this court. It was held that the law declared by this court was binding o....
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....tion. In my view, the attempt made by Shri Srinivasan to distinguish the enunciation made in Makhanlal Waza's case [1971] 3 SCR 832; AIR 1971 SC 2206 is without a difference and has no merit at all. The enunciation made is not based on any such distinction and difference. On the application of the principles enunciated in Makhanlal Waza's case, it follows that the declaration made by the Supreme Court in Hansa Corporation's case [1980] ILR 1 Kar 165 upholding the validity of the Act is binding on all courts, authorities and persons in the State of Karnataka notwithstanding the fact that the State had filed only one appeal and had not filed appeals in the other cases ........" From the above discussion, it would appear that the learned single judge felt that Joginder Singh's case [1963]12 Suppl SCR 169; AIR 1963 SC 913 indicated a different view. Now, we will see how the Division Bench understood the above propositions. After considering the facts of the case and extracting the relevant portions of this court's judgments, the Division Bench observed as follows : " In our opinion, there is no conflict between the aforesaid two decisions of the Supreme Court. As rightly pointed o....
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....eal against the orders in the other three petitions, and Mr. Agarwala, learned counsel for the respondent, raises the contention that as the orders in the other three petitions have become final, any order passed in this appeal at variance with the relief granted in the other three petitions would create inconsistent decrees in respect of the same matter and so we should dismiss the present appeal as incompetent. We, however, consider that this would not be the legal effect of any order passed by the court in this appeal and that there is no merit in this objection as a bar to the hearing of the appeal. In our opinion, the true position arising, if the present appeal by the State Government should succeed, would be that the finality of the orders passed in the other three writ petitions by the Punjab High Court would not be disturbed and that those three successful petitioners would be entitled to retain the advantages which they had secured by the decision in their favour, not being challenged by an appeal being filed. That, however, would not help the present respondent who would be bound by our judgment in this appeal and besides, so far as the general law is concerned as applic....
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....misconceived. The judgment which was delivered did not merely declare the promotions granted to the respondents in the writ petition filed at the previous stage as unconstitutional but also laid down in clear and unequivocal terms that the distribution of appointments, posts or promotions made in implementation of the communal policy was contrary to the constitutional guarantee of article 16. The law so declared by this court was binding on the respondent State and its officers and they were bound to follow it whether a majority of the present respondents were parties or not to the previous petition." In our opinion, both these decisions lay down identical principles and there is nothing to distinguish between the two. In the earlier case, this court, on its facts, overruled the preliminary objection that absence of appeals against the three petitioners left out, would not render the appeal before this court incompetent, holding thereby that the effect of the decision in that appeal would be binding on the appellant therein. In the latter case, this court in unmistakable terms laid down that the law laid down in the earlier case, namely, Triloknath's case [1969] 1 SCR 103; AIR 196....
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....etitions are disposed of by a common judgment and only one appeal is filed, the parties to the common judgment could very well have and should have intervened and could have requested the court to hear them also. They cannot be heard to say that the decision was taken by this court behind their back or profess ignorance of the fact that an appeal had been filed by the State against the common judgment. We would like to observe that, in the fitness of things, it would be desirable that the State Government also took out publication in such cases to alert parties bound by the judgment, of the fact that an appeal had been preferred before this court by them. We do not find fault with the State for having filed only one appeal. It is, of course, an economising procedure. The judgment in the Hansa Corporation's case, rendered by one of us (Desai J.) concludes as follows : " As we are not able to uphold the contentions which found favour with the High Court in striking down the impugned Act and the notification issued thereunder and as we find no merit in other contentions canvassed on behalf of the respondent for sustaining the judgment of the High Court, this appeal must succeed. Acc....