- (1.) This Special Appeal by Shri Vishwanath Prasad is directed against the judgment of S.C. Manchanda, J. dated 15.9.1964 filed by the Appellant, who is an Assessee under the U.P. (Urban Area) Land and Buildings Tax Act (U.P. Act No. XII of 1962), hereinafter referred to as the Act.
(2.) No questions of fact are involved in this case. Learned Counsel for the Appellant has challenged the vires of the Act on the following four grounds: (i) That the tax being on the occupier cannot be a tax on lands and buildings with the result that it is not covered by entry No. 49 of List II of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India; (ii) That the Act does not provide for notices in all cases and therefore it suffers from the defect of a breach of the principles of natural justice; (iii) That in so far as the Act does not provide a procedure for obtaining the opinion of a superior civil court it is arbitrary and discriminatory in nature and is hit by Article 14 of the Constitution of India; and (iv) That there is no guidance provided in the proviso to Clause (a) of Section 4(1) of the Act and therefore the same is discriminatory and liable to be struck down for breach of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. We will take the submissions seriatim. I. The State Legislature can enact laws taxing lands and buildings. Entry 49 of List II of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution on which reliance has been placed on behalf of the State reads: Taxes on lands and buildings. A Division Bench of this Court in Sirajuddin v. State of UP,1964 AWR 583 held that the UP Legislature was competent to enact the impugned legislation. We find ourselves in agreement with the view taken in that decision. The first submission of the learned Counsel is therefore overruled. II. The matter relating to notice is dealt with in Section 8 of the Act. That provision reads: 8. Preparation of the provisional assessment list.-(1) The Assessing Authority shall prepare or cause to be prepared, in such manner and containing such particular as may be prescribed, a provisional assessment list of ail lands and buildings liable to pay the tax. (2) The Assessing Authority shall, in preparing the list, determine the taxable value of and the amount of the tax to be assessed on all lands and buildings liable to pay the tax and the same shall be duly shown in the list. (3) When the provisional assessment list has been prepared the Assessing Authority shall give public notice, in such manner as may be prescribed, of the place at, and the date from, which the same may be inspected, and every person claiming to be the owner or the occupier of the land or the building mentioned in the list including an agent of such person, shall be at liberty to inspect the same and to take extracts therefrom without payment of any charge: Provided that in all cases in which any land or building is proposed to be assessed after determining its taxable value in accordance with the provisions of Clause (ii) of Section 4, the Assessing Authority shall also cause service of the notice, in such manner and containing such particulars, as may be prescribed, on the owner. (Underlined by us) (herein in bold letters). An analysis of the provision reveals that in case where a provisional assessment list has been prepared the Assessing Authority is required to give public notice in such manner as may be prescribed by rules, but in cases where the assessing authority determines the value in accordance with the provisions of Clause (ii) of Section 4 it is required to give a notice to every owner. 4 Clause (ii) deals with cases not covered by Clause (i) of that section. Clause (i) is to the effect that the taxable value of a land or building shall for the purposes of this Act be deemed to be an amount equal to, where the annual value of the land or the building has already been determined under the provisions of the U.P. Town Areas Act, 1914 (U.P. Act II of 1914) or the U.P. Municipalities Act, 1916 (U.P. Act No. II of 1916), or the U.P. Naaar Mahapalika Adhiniyam, 1959 (U.P. Act No. II of 1959), or the Cantonment Act, 1924 (U.P. Act No. II of 1924) the amount so determined. In cases where the Assessing Authority is of the opinion that the annual value so determined under the various Acts is inadequate or excessive he has to follow the procedure prescribed by Clause (ii) of Section 4 of the Act. In other words notices have got to be given to every owner in respect of whose land or building action is sought to be taken by the Assessing Authority under Clause (ii) of Section 4 of the Act, i.e. the cases where he is of the opinion that the value is inadequate or excessive. Learned Counsel for the Appellant contends that inasmuch as in cases which are not covered by Clause (2) of Section 4 of the Act a general notice only has beery provided for, there has been a violation of the principles of natural justice. In our judgment the submission is not well founded. No authority or statutory provision has been brought to our notice to the effect that in all cases individual and personal notices should be served and that a general notice does not fulfill the requirements of the principles of natural justice. It was held in Nagendra Nath Bora v. Commissioner, Hill Division, Assam, 1958 AIR(SC) 398 at p. 409) in paragraph 17 as follows: The next ground of attack against the order of the High Court, under appeal, was that the High Court had erred in coming to the conclusion that there had been a failure to natural justice. In this connection the High Court has made reference to the several affidavits filed on either side, and the order in which they had been filed, and the use made of those affidavits, or counter affidavits. As already indicated the rules make no provisions for the reception of evidence, oral or documentary, or the hearing of oral arguments, or even for the issue of notice of the hearing to the parties concerned'. The entire proceedings are marked by a complete lack of formality. The several authorities have been left to their own resources to make the best selection. In this connection, reference may be made to the observations of this Court in the case of New Prakash Transport Co. Ltd. v. New Suwarna Transport Co. Ltd., 1957 AIR(SC) 232). In that case, this Court has laid down that the rules of natural justice vary with the varying constitution of statutory bodies and the rules prescribed by the Act under which they function; and the question whether or not any rules of natural justice had been contravened, should be decided not under any preconceived notions, but in the light of the statutory rules and provisions. In the instant case, no such rules have been brought to our notice, which could be said to have been contravened by the Appellate Authority. Simply because it viewed a case in a particular light which may not be acceptable to another independent tribunal, is no ground for interference either under Article 226 or Article 227 of the Constitution. In our judgment a general public notice completely fulfils the equipments of the principles of natural justice. In fact in several statutes such provisions have been made as for example Sections 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act. Neither of those provisions require notices being issued to the person whose land is sought to be acquired and all that the law requires is for a general notice in the State Gazette and one affixed at a prominent place. The U.P. Municipalities Act which provides the model of the Act with regard to these matters also does not provide for personal notice being served upon the owners on whom house tax is sought to be imposed except where it is done for the first time. The provisions of Section 142 of the U.P. Municipalities Act are very similar to those of Section 8 of the Act. The safeguard provided by the U.P. Municipalities Act in the shape of the requirement that in the first instance notice shall be issued to every owner fully exists under the Act by the provisions of Section 4 (1) of the Act which require the value fixed under the various local Acts to be the one for the purposes of the Act. The Act did not provide for a fresh and further opportunity for that purpose because that opportunity had already been provided for in the various local Acts referred to in Section 4 of the Act, but in all cases where that opportunity had not been provided for under those Acts, i. e. those covered by Section 4 Clause (ii) of the Act, an opportunity by giving personal notice has been provided for in the Act. In the first place a general public notice in our opinion does fulfill the requirements of the principles of natural justice and, secondly, so far as the cases under Sub-section (3) of Section 8 of the Act are concerned, persons concerned have already had personal notice when first assessed under the various Acts mentioned in Section 4 (1) of the Act. In all other cases there is a clear provision for personal notice. If a party had an opportunity at one stage he is not entitled to repetition of the same in the name of the principles of natural justice. See F.N. Roy v. Collector of Customs, Calcutta, 1957 AIR(SC) 648, where their Lordships said that there is no rule of natural justice that at every stage a person is entitled to personal hearing. We are, therefore, satisfied that there are no merits, in the second submission of the learned Counsel also. III. It is not imperative and it is not a condition precedent to the validity of a statute that there must invariably be a provision for obtaining the opinion of a superior civil court. That maybe one of the tests of reasonableness but that is not the conclusive and the only test. The Act by means of Section 16 clearly provides for a right of appeal and by means of Section 19 a right of revision. In Hari Shanker Ragla v. State of Madhya Pradesh,1954 MR(SC) 465 the learned Judges of Supreme Court distinguishing their earlier decision in Messrs Dwarka Prasad Laxmi Narain v. State of U.P., 1954 AIR(SC) 224 held that inasmuch as there was a provision in the impugned Act for appeals, the argument with regard to invalidity for alleged breach of Article 14 of the Constitution could be sustained. In the present case we have already pointed out that the Act provides not only for appeal but also for revision. The third submission of the learned Counsel also fails.
(3.) With regard to the fourth submission of the learned Counsel we would like to point out that in Sirajuddin v. State of U.P. (1) it has already been pointed out that the Act does not suffer from the defect of any breach of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. With regard to the proviso to Clause (a) of Section 4 (i) of the Act it may be stated that there is a clear and direct guiding principle in the provision itself, the same being that in cases where the valuation is inadequate or excessive the Assessing Authority would interfere.;