TMI Blog1965 (9) TMI 60X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... llary or incidental to the appellate power and may be exercised as such and second, that the Appellate Tribunal must be deemed to be a court, and to be vested, as in the case of a civil court, with inherent powers, including the power to stay recovery. We think that the petitioner is entitled to succeed on the first ground, and that it is unnecessary to consider the validity of the second ground. That the power to stay is a necessary corollary and is incidental to the appellate power has been ruled by Rajagopala Ayyangar J., as a judge of the Madras High Court, in Swarnambikai Motor Service v. Wahita Motor Service W.Ps. Nos. 427 and 438 of 1956. The short report of the case sets out the relevant passage as follows: It is no doubt true t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tor Vehicles Act, in which the learned judge observed: The power to stay is a necessary corollary to the power to entertain an appeal or revision. The question as to whether the appellate authority under the Motor Vehicles Act has power to remand the case to the subordinate authority, was answered in the affirmative by a Full Bench of this court in Dharmadas v. State Transport Appellate Tribunal [1962] K.L.J. 1133 (F.B.) where the learned Chief Justice, relying on Sutherland, 3rd edition, volume III, page 19, observed that where a statute confers powers or duties in general terms, all powers and duties incidental and necessary to make such legislation effective are included by implication and held that the power to remand the case ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ey cannot regulate the time to come, so as to make express provision against all inconveniences, which are infinite in number, and that their dispositions should express all the cases that may possibly happen; but it is only the prudence and duty of a law-giver to foresee the most natural and most ordinary events, and to form his dispositions in such a manner as that, without entering into the details of the singular cases, he may establish rules common to them all by discerning that which may deserve either exceptions or particular dispositions. And next it is the duty of the judges to apply the laws, not only to what appears to be regulated by their express dispositions, but to all the cases where a just application of them may be made, a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... y and is therefore a different power and is no substitute for the power of the appellate authority to stay the proceedings of recovery. As for the need for a power to stay, the same learned judge stated thus, at page 268 of the report: ....cases might easily be conceived and do occur, where the assessee would suffer financial ruin and irreparable injury if an order for stay of collection of the demand is not made. Sometimes assessments for three years and more are completed at the same time and the assessee is called upon to pay a heavy demand of tax within a few days. If, as we think, the power to grant a stay is incidental or ancillary to the appellate jurisdiction, the absence of conferment of such a power in specific terms canno ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e Constitution, to grant stay of proceedings. In our opinion, so long as the power of stay is considered to be part and parcel of the appellate jurisdiction, the provisions referred to have very little relevance. Learned counsel for the revenue then took us through paragraph 4.49 to 4.52 of the Report of the Direct Taxes Administration Enquiry Committee, 1958-59, for contending that the legislature did not intend to confer a power of stay on the Appellate Tribunal. The Committee considered two proposals. One was that, pending appeals, there ought to be an automatic stay of collection of tax. In the United Kingdom, the law as stated in Halsbury's Laws of England, 3rd edition, volume 20, page 705, paragraph 1399, is as follows: No ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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