TMI Blog1962 (2) TMI 76X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... is made by the Federal Legislature. The precise import, significance and effect of the words continue to be levied and to be applied to the same purposes until provision to the contrary is made by the Federal Legislature is the common question which arises in these four appeals which come before us by virtue of certificates under Art. 132 of the Constitution granted by the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Nagpur. Section 51 of the Central Provinces and Berar Local Self Government Act, 1920 enacted : 51. (1) Subject to the provisions of any law or enactment for the time being in force a District Council may, by a resolution passed by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members present at a special meeting convened for the purpose, impose any tax, toll or rate other than those specified in sections 24, 48, 49, and 50. (2).................................................... (3)................................................... By virtue of the power thus conferred the District Council of Bhandara which was a local authority constituted under this Act of 1920 imposed a tax on the export of bidis and bidi-leaves by rail out of the Bhandara district by a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ituted under the said Act shall continue to function thereunder for such time till the constitution of the Sabhas as the Provincial Government may, by notification, specify; (b) all rules and bye laws made, all notifications published, all orders issued and all licences and permissions granted under the said Act and in force immediately be-fore the commencement of this Act shall, so far as they are consistent with this Act, be deemed to have been respectively made, published, issued and granted thereunder;, (c) all rates, taxes and cesses due to the district Council or Local Board shall be deemed to be due to the Sabha to whose area they pertain; and (d) all references made in any Act of the Provincial Legislature to the said Act shall be read as if made to this Act or to the corresponding provision thereof. Pausing here, two matters which figured largely in the arguments require to be noticed in the provisions of this section. The first is that there was an express repeal of the Local Self Government Act of 1920 effected by the main part of the section. The second is that the repeal was not absolute and unconditional but was modified, by a saving which continued the o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 948 when originally enacted. the levy of this tax by the Janpad Sabhas would have been valid. It is only necessary to add that if this tax had been lawfully levied by the Janpad Sabhas immediately before January 26, 1950, they could continue to be levied after Constitution came into force nothwithstanding the repeal of the Government of India Act by the Constitution and notwithstanding terminal taxes being a tax solely leviable by the Union List in Sch. VII) by reason of the provision contained in Art. 277 of the Constitution reading: 277. Any taxes. duties, ceases or fees which, immediately before the commencement of this Constitution, were being lawfully levied by the Government of any State or by any municipality or other local authority or body for the purposes of the State, municipality, district or other local area may, notwithstanding that those taxes, duties, ceases or fees are mentioned in the Union List, continue to be levied and to be applied to the same purposes until provision to the contrary is made by Parliament by law. It would thus be seen that in order to sustain the claim, of the respective Janpad Sabhas who are the respondents in these four appeals to co ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ed April 13, 1955, by which all the suits were dismissed but a certificate was granted under Art. 132 of the Constitution. On the strength of the certificate four of the aggrieved plaintiffs filed appeals to the Courts and that is how the matter is before us. Before considering the submissions made to us by the learned Attorney-General for the appellant it would be convenient to state the exact factual position relating to the levy of the impugned tax : (1)The tax being one on goods exported out of the local area by-rail would answer the description of a terminal tax falling within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Central Legislature under the Government of India.Act, 1935. The position has continued to be the same under the distribution of legislative power in relation to taxes under the Constitution. The result would, therefore, be that but for the saving contained in s. 143(2) of the Government of India Act, 1935 it would not have been legally competent for the local authority to continue to levy the tax after the Government of India Act came into force ; similarly but for Art. 277 that levy could not have been continued beyond January 26, 1950. On the facts stated earlie ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ent-Sabhas the right to levy the tax. The only point that was urged before us in challenge of the right of the respondent-Sabhas to continue the levy of this terminal tax may be formulated thus: The Provincial Legislature of Central Provinces Berar in exercise of its legislative power under item 13 of the Provincial Legislative List enacted the Local Government Act, 1948 and validly repealed the Act of 1920 under which this tax was levied. As part of the same legislation and taking effect at the same time it was open to that Legislature to have continued the provisions of the repealed Act of, 1920 under ,which the impugned tax was levied so as to enable the newly created Janpad Sabhas to exercise the fiscal powers of the District Councils which they replaced, thus so to speak modifying or qualifying the repeal. Such a continuance could be provided by a saving clause couched in appropriate phraseology to effectuate such an intention. If this had been done the source of legal authority to levy the tax would, even after the Act of 1948 came into force, have been the repealed Act of 1920 which to the extent of the saving would be deemed to have continued in force. But this was not ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... of s. 143 (2) of the Government of India Act, 1935 was in effect to vest in Provincial Legislatures a plenary power to legislate in respect of every tax which was being lawfully levied by local authorities etc. in the Province prior to the commencement of Part III of the Government of India Act so much so that even if the amendment efrected to s. 192 by the Local Government (Amendment) Act of 1949 be treated as itself a fresh imposition of the tax its validity could not bechallenged. We must express our inability toaccept this extreme contention. Section 143 (2) which is a saving clause and obviously, designed, to prevent a dislocation of the finances of Local Governments and of local authorities by reason of the coming into force of the provisions of the Government of India Act distributing heads of taxation on lines different from those which prevailed before that date, cannot be construed as one conferring a plenary power to legislate on those topics till such time as the Central Legislature intervened. Such a construction would necessarily involve a power in the Provincial Legislature to enhance the rates of taxation-a result we must say from which Mr. Sanyal did not shrink, ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 1948. We consider that this submission also deserves, in the circumstances of the present case, to be rejected. It is a cardinal principle of statutory construction that the intention of the legislature should be gathered from the words of the enactment. If, as we have held, those words are incapable of the construction that there was a savig of the right of the Janpad Sabbas to impose and collect the tax- apart from the right to collect the arrears of tax which accured due while the District Council was in existence,that construction cannot be modified and the legislative intent with which that proviso was enacted supplemented by a reference to what the legislature did later. No doubt, there is authority for the position that when the meaning of the words used in an enactment is ambiguos or obscure, subsequent statutes might sometimes be used as what has been termed a parliamentary exposition of the obscure phraseology. It is hardly necessary to discuss the permissible limits of this node of construction for the purpose of the present lase, because the prime conditions for invoking that rule are absent herethere is no obscurity or ambiguity in the words of el. (c) and secondly ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... uthorities and other local authorities for the purpose of local selfgovernment on village administration . It must however be observed that merely because the legislature is empowered under this entry to constitute local authorities and vest them with powers and jurisdiction it would not follow that these local bodies could be vested with authority to levy any and every tax for the purpose of raising revenue for the purposes of local administration. They could be validly authorised to raise only those taxes which the Province could raise under and by virtue of the relevant entries in the Provincial Legislative List. This is on the principle that the Province could not authorise local bodies created by it to impose taxes which it itself could not directly levy for the purposes of the Provincial Government. Now comes the question whether the Provincial Legislature was competent, by legislation, to discontinue the levy of the tax by effecting a repeal of the taxing provision contained in the Local Self Government Act of 1920. There is no doubt that the general principle is that the power of a legislative body to repeal a law is coextensive with its power to enact each a law, as wou ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s. 143(2) of the Government of India Act. If we are right so far it would follow that in the exercise of this limited legislative power the Provincial Legislature would also have a right to legislate for the continuance of the tax provided, if of course, the other conditions of s. 143(2) are satisfied, viz., (1) that the tax was one which was lawfully levied by a local authority for the purposes of a local area at the commencement of Part III of the Government of India Act.,. (2) that the identity of the body that collects the tax, the area for whose benefit the tax is to be utilised and the purposes for which the utilisation is to take place continue to be the same and (3) the rate of the tax is not enhanced nor its incidence in any manner altered, so that it continues to be same tax. If as we have hold earlier there is a limited legislative power in the Province to enact a law with reference to the tax levy so as to continue it, the validity of the Act of 1949 which manifested the legislative intent to Continue the tax without any break, the legal continuity being established by the retrospective, operation of the provision, has to be upheld. The appeals therefore fail and ar ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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