Dr. AR. LAKSHMANAN, J. - (1.) The State of West Bengal Department of Finance, Calcutta and two others are the appellants in this appeal. Leave was granted by this Court on 30-03-2001 and pending disposal of the appeal, stay of operation of the judgment and order under challenge was passed.
(2.) The above appeal is directed against the final judgment and order dated 04-08-2000 passed by the High Court at Calcutta in W.P.T.T. No. 338 of 2000 whereby the High Court allowed the writ petition filed by respondent Nos. 1 and 2 and declared clause (ii) of sub-section (4a) of Section 4-A of the West Bengal Entertainment-cum-Amusement Tax Act, 1982 (as amended by the West Bengal Finance Act, 1998) is ultra vires to the Constitution.
(3.) Respondent No.1 carries on business as a Multi System Operator (hereinafter referred to as MSO) and is engaged in receiving and providing TV signals to individual cable operators of various localities. The respondents are receiving communication signals known as TV signals broadcast by various satellite channels and are distributing the same to the sub-cable operators. The process involved in the business consists of establishment of state of the art control rooms and spreading the cable network. The said network signals are being given to various sub-cable operators with whom the respondents have franchise agreement. According to the respondents, there is a significant and qualitative difference between the functions performed by them and the activities of sub-cable operators who are franchisee of the respondent-company. According to the respondents, the object of the MSO is to capture signals from various satellites and to put all of them in proper format/frequencies so that all those signals can travel together in cables without encroaching upon and interfering with other signals for the reception and distribution by the so- called sub-cable operators. The signals are transmitted through the satellites by the various broadcasters from their earth uplinking stations at various parts of the world.;