SATISH CHANDRA, J. - (1.) THIS group of special appeals is directed against the judgment of a learned single Judge quashing the Excise Commissioner s order dated 18th September, 1974, whereunder he had indicated that vend fee will continue to be charged from wholesale licence-holders of denatured spirit, and farther directing the Excise Commissioner to refund the vend fee actually paid by the petitioner-respondents for a period of three years prior to the institution of the writ petition.
(2.) THE petitioner-respondent holds a licence in Form FL-16 for the wholesale vend of denatured spirit. It questioned the validity of the levy of vend fee on denatured spirit. According to the petitioner-respondent, the State was rendering no service to the trade of denatured spirit. The vend fee hence could not be levied as a fee. In its true nature and character it was an excise duty or tax. The State Legislature had no competence to authorise the levy of excise duty or tax on denatured spirit, because levy of such duty or tax on denatured spirit was exclusively in the domain of Parliament The appellate State has pleaded that the levy of vend was not a tax or a duty. It was consideration for parting with the exclusive privilege of the State to trade in intoxicating liquors, including denatured spirit. In law the State had exclusive privilege to deal in such articles, and it could validly part with the privilege for consideration. The levy of licence fee and the vend fee constituted consideration for permitting the petitioner-respondent to carry on trade in the wholesale vend of denatured spirit. It was also suggested that the vend fee was a fee properly so-called.
(3.) IN 1972 the State Legislature enacted the U. P. Excise (Amendment) Act, 30 of 1972. By this Act the State Legislature authorised the Government to sell by auction the right of retail and wholesale vend of foreign liquor (which includes Denatured Spirit).;