AI OCR 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1964 (2) TMI 5
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....tution of the reorganized State, no change in the laws in force which immediately before November 1, 1956, extended or applied to any constituent regions, was effected, and territorial references in the laws to an existing State shall, until otherwise provided by a competent legislature or other competent authority be construed as meaning the territories within that State immediately before November 1, 1956. By the Madhya Pradesh Adaptation of Laws (State and Concurrent Subjects) Order, 1956, promulgated by the Government of the State, all laws in force in the regions which were newly incorporated into the reorganised State of Madhya Pradesh were, with certain adaptations and modifications specified in the Order, to remain in force in those areas until altered, repealed or amended, and by that Order the Bhopal Act (IX of 1953) continued to remain applicable in the territory of the former Bhopal State, in the new State of Madhya Pradesh. Later the legislature of the Madhya Pradesh State enacted the Madhya Pradesh Extension of Laws Act, 1958, extending several Acts---Central as well as State---to the entire territory of the State, but no alteration was made in the territorial operati....
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....ed by the statute does not on that account become impermissible. All persons who are similarly circumstanced as regards a subject-matter are entitled to equal protection of the laws, but it is not predicated thereby that every law must have universal application irrespective of dissimilarity of objects or transactions to which it applies, or of the nature or attainments of the persons to whom it relates. The legislature has always the power to make special laws to attain particular objects and for that purpose has authority to select or classify persons, objects or transactions upon which the law is intended to operate. Differential treatment becomes unlawful only when it is arbitrary or not supported by a rational relation with the object of the statute. This court has held in several cases, that where application of unequal laws is reasonably justified for historical reasons, a geographical classification founded on those [historical reasons would be upheld : Bhaiyalal Skukla v. State of Madhya Pradesh, State of Madhya Pradesh v. Gwalior Sugar Co. Ltd. Maharaj Kumar Prithvi Raj v. State of Rajasthan and Anand Prasad Lakshminiwas Ganeriwal v. State of Andhra Pradesh. The decision ....
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.... new units was politically inexpedient even if theoretically possible. An attempt to secure uniformity of laws before reorganisation of the units would also have considerably retarded the process of reorganisation. With the object of effectuating a swift transition, the States Reorganisation Act made a blanket provision in section 119 continuing the operation of the laws in force in the territories in which they were previously in force notwithstanding the territorial reorganisation into different adminstrative units until the competent legislature or authority amended, altered or modified those laws. The reorganized State of Madhya Pradesh was formed by combining territories of four different regions. Shortly after reorganisation, the Governor of the State issued the Madhya Pradesh Adaptation of Laws (State and Concurrent Subjects) Order, 1956, so as to make certain laws applicable uniformly to the entire State and later the legislature by the Madhya Pradesh Extension of Laws Act, 1958, made other alterations in the laws applicable to the State. But Bhopal Act IX of 1953 remained unamended and unaltered : nor was its operation extended to other areas or regions in the State. Con....
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....ortunity to decide whether the continuance of the Bhopal State Agricultural Income-tax Act in the Bhopal region would be consistent with article 14 of the Constitution. We are unable to agree with the view of the High Court so expressed. It would be impossible to lay down any definite time-limit within which the State had to make necessary adjustments so as to effectuate the equality clause of the Constitution. That initially there was a valid geographical classification of regions in the same State justifying unequal laws when the State was formed must be accepted. But whether the continuance of unequal laws by itself sustained the plea of unlawful discrimination in view of changed circumstances could only be ascertained after a full and thorough enquiry into the continuance of the grounds on which the inequality could rationally be founded, and the change of circumstances, if any, which obliterated the compulsion of expediency and necessity existing at the time when the Reorganisation Act was enacted. Unfortunately, there was no clear perception by the parties of what has to be pleaded and proved to establish a plea of denial of equal protection of the laws. The company merely ....
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....axes on land and income from land in other regions, the ultimate burden on persons in the Bhopal region who were subjected to agricultural income-tax and agricultural land owners in the rest of the State did not disclose a pattern of wide variations, the mere existence of agricultural income impost in one region, and absence of such impost in another region may not necessarily justify an inference of unlawful discrimination. It was therefore, necessary to ascertain the difference in the overall tax liability between persons similarly situated in the State of Madhya Pradesh in the matter of levy of agricultural tax. For that purpose an investigation was necessary whether the incidence of total burden on agriculturists was so disparate that an inference of unlawful discrimination may reasonably be made. The High Court had to ascertain the impact of diverse land taxes imposed on agricultural land in the four regions of the State, and whether the burden between persons similarly circumstanced was substantially dissimilar, and whether continuance of dissimilar levies was justified. If upon a thorough examination of the pattern of land taxes in different regions of the State, it appeared....