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TMI Blog1972 (11) TMI 15X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... islative competence to enact a law seeking to levy a tax on agricultural lands; and (2) the proviso to section 5(1)(iva) of the Wealth-tax Act, 1957, as amended by the Finance Act of 1969, is liable to be struck down as discriminatory in that it has made invidious and hostile discrimination by granting higher exemption to assessees who own agricultural lands and other assessees who own other assets, and that the higher exemption relating to agricultural lands alone is violative of article 14 of the Constitution. The first contention has at once to be rejected in view of the decision of the Supreme Court in Union of India v. Harbhajan Singh Dhillon which has upheld the validity of the relative provision in the Finance Act, 1969, holding tha ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... part of house as is not to be included in the net wealth of the as under clause (iv)." Section 5(1)(iv) as amended provides for an exemption of a house property up to the value of Rs. 1,00,000. Under section 5(1)(iva) agricultural lands up to the value of Rs. 1,50,000 are exempted. The contention of the petitioners as originally put forward in the affidavits is that the higher exemption in respect of agricultural lands under section 5(1)(iva) is violative of article 14 of the Constitution. But, at the time of the arguments, the learned counsel for the petitioners frankly stated that it is against the petitioner's interest to put forward such con utention and that, therefore, he is giving up that contention. But he would however, contend t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tegories of assets. The legislature is empowered to say that while granting the exemption in relation to one category of assets the assessing authority is bound to take into account the grant of exemption to the same individual under other categories of assets. Therefore, while granting exemption in relation to agricultural lands and fixing a limit of Rs. 1,50.000 under section 5(1)(iva), the legislature had specifically provided that while considering the question of exemption under clause (iva) the fact that the a has got an exemption under clause (iv) in respect of a house property had to be taken into account. The legislative intention in introducing the proviso to clause (iva) is to make a two-fold classification between persons owning ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... must also pass the test of article 14 in deciding whether a taxation law is discriminatory or not it is necessary to bear in mind that the State has a wide discretion is selecting the persons or objects it will tax, that a statute is not open to attack on the ground that it taxes some persons or objects and not others and that it is only when, within the range of its selection, the law operates unequally and that cannot be justified on the basis of any valid classification that it would be violative of article 14. In that case the effect of the provision for exemption was that the taxing law operated unequally and that inequality could not be justified on the basis of any valid classification. But in this case, it is not as if the taxing m ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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