Chawdhary, J. (March 2, 1955) - (1.) THIS is an application under Article 226 of the Constitution by the Tata Oil Mills Go. Ltd., Bruce Street, Fort Bombay, directed against the District Board of Allahabad, the District Magistrate of Allahabad and the Tax Officer District Board Allahabad for relief by the issue of appropriate writs from payment of a sum of Rs. 500 per annum imposed as Circumstances and Property Tax upon the applicant under the provision of the U.P. District Boards Act.
(2.) THE applicant has its registered office at Bombay and a branch office within the municipal limits of Allahabad in a locality known as the Jawahar Square. It has also got a godown at Naini outside the municipal limits but within the territorial jurisdiction of the District Board of Allahabad. The case of the applicant is that it does not carry on any business at the said godown, and therefore the District Board was not entitled to levy any circumstances and property tax on it. The other ground on which the levy has been challenged is that the provisions of Section 114 of the Distract Boards Act 1922, whereunder the tax has been imposed is invalid inasmuch as the power to impose the tax in question does not come under any of the categories laid down in List II of Schedule VII appended to the Constitution. A preliminary objection was taken by the Learned Counsel for the opposite parties that the present application is not maintainable because adequate relief is obtainable by the applicant by a regular suit. In support of this objection the Learned Counsel cited two cases, District Board Farrukhabad v. Prag Dutt, 1948 A.W.R. (H.C.) 346 and The District Board Banaras v. G.F. Kellner and Company, 1954 A.W.R. (H.C.) 214, in both of which, it was contended, the legality of imposition of circumstances and property tax was the subject -matter of litigation. The argument of the Learned Counsel for the opposite party was that these rulings show that it was possible for the applicant to ventilate his grievance with regard to the imposition in question by a regular suit. That may be so, but what distinguishes the present application from the suits which give rise to the appeals reported in District Board Farrukhabad v. Prag Dutt, 1948 A.W.R. (H.C.) 346 and The District Board Banaras v. G.F. Kellner and Company, 1954 A.W.R. (H.C.) 214 is that one of the grounds on which the imposition is questioned here is that it is ultra vires the Constitution. Where that is the case the plea of availability of an alternative relief would not be a bar to the maintainability of an application under Article 226 of the Constitution. As however the present case involves a question as to the validity of a provision of the U.P. District Boards Act, it is directed that it be listed for hearing before a Bench of two Judges. Agarwala, J.
(3.) THIS is an application under Article 226 of the Constitution. The applicant is the Tata Oil Mills Company Limited, Bruce Street, Fort Bombay. The opposite -parties are the District Board of Allahabad, the District Magistrate of Allahabad and the Taxing Officer, District Board, Allahabad. The relief claimed in the application is that an appropriate writ be issued against the opposite -parties restraining them from imposing and levying a tax on circumstances and property of the applicant Company and further praying that a writ of certiorari be issued quashing the appellate order of the Additional District Magistrate, Allahabad dated the 12th of January, 1954.;