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1955 (10) TMI 2 - SC - Income TaxWhether section 46(2) of the Indian Income-tax Act under which the Income-tax Officer issued the recovery certificate to the Additional Collector of Bombay is void under article 13(1) of the Constitution in that the same offends article 22(1) and (2), article 21 and article 14 of the Constitution? Whether section 13 of the Bombay City Land Revenue Act, 1876, under which the warrant of arrest was issued by the Additional Collector is void under article 13(1) of the Constitution as the same is repugnant to article 14 of the Constitution? Held that:- The law impugned before us has only adopted, for its own purpose, the same coercive process which was devised by the States for their own purposes which are closely akin or similar to the purpose of the Union. To deny this power to the Union on constitutional grounds urged before us will lead us to hold that no new offence created by law can be made triable according to the procedure laid down in the Code of Criminal Procedure, for that Code sanctions different modes of trial in different areas, namely, by section 30 Magistrate in some areas, by the Sessions Judge with assessors in certain areas, and by the Sessions Judge with jurors in other areas. Adoption of an existing machinery devised for a particular purpose cannot, if there be no vice of unconstitutionality in the machinery, render it unconstitutional if it is made to subserve a purpose closely akin or similar to the purpose for which it had been devised. The first objection formulated by learned counsel for the petitioner must, therefore, be rejected. It is only after the sale proceeds were found to be insufficient to satisfy the assessed amount and the assessee failed to pay up the balance that the question of the arrest of the defaulter arose. By that time section 13 had been amended and the warrant of arrest was issued on the 7th June, 1955, that is to say, long after the amendment of the section. In our opinion the second ground urged by the learned counsel must also be negatived. Appeal dismissed.
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