1953 (12) TMI 4

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..... nd praying for the issue of appropriate writs in that behalf. The applications were dismissed by the Court and leave to appeal having been refused, the appellant has brought these appeals by special leave of this Court. It is a matter of admission that the officer making the assessments was an officer appointed under the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, and that in making such assessments he was applying the income-tax law in force in the State of Mysore down to the end of the year of account 1948-49. The officer was exercising jurisdiction in the State by virtue of the proviso to Section 13 of the Indian Finance Act, 1950, which reads as follows :--- "Repeals and Savings. --- (1) If immediately before the 1st day of April, 1950, there is i .....

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..... is based on two grounds : namely, firstly, on general constitutional principles the Union Parliament had no power to make a law having retrospective operation with reference to the pre-constitution period ; and secondly, the Union Parliament is prohibited by Article 277 of the Constitution by necessary implication from making a law grafting on the Mysore income-tax law the machinery for assessment and collection provided under the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, for purposes of assessment thereunder. So far as the first ground is concerned, the case is governed by the judgment just delivered in the Rajasthan case (Union of India v. Madan Gopal Kabra). It remains only to deal with the second ground based on Article 277. That article reads th .....

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..... this argument. While Article 277 undoubtedly authorises the continued levy of taxes lawfully levied by the Government of the State before the commencement of the Constitution and their application to the same purposes as before, even after the Constitution came into force, there is nothing in the article to warrant any implication that such taxes should continue to be levied, assessed and collected by the same State authorities as before the Constitution. As the High Court rightly pointed out, it would obviously have been inconvenient and unnecessary to have officers appointed under the Mysore Income-tax Act continuing to function only in respect of the earlier assessment years side by side with officers appointed under the Indian Income-t .....

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