- (1.) This is one more colliery case on a less complicated Act, but it involves questions of nicety. The imposition of cess on the sale price of the water discharged from the coal mine, paid for its use by the neighboring glass factory, has set the legal ball rolling.
(2.) Shortly, the facts are : The petitioner, a coal company, is the owner of a colliery near Asansol in the District of Burdwan. As usual in coal mines, the percolated water which accumulated in the petitioner's colliery was pumped out and discharged at the surface, to prevent inundation of the same. For the year 1958-59, a sum of Rs. 42,073/- was received by the petitioner as the sale price of the water, so pumped out The profit and less account of the said year shows a sum of Rs. 5.82,000/- and odd as the sale price of the coal and the said sum of Rs. 42,072/- as miscellaneous income being charges for water supply. For the first time, the petitioner claimed deduction of the sale proceeds of the water from the assessment unlike previous years.
(3.) The Cess Deputy Collector, Burdwan assessed the petitioner in respect of the colliery with the Road and Public Works Cess under chapter V of the Cess Act, 1880 (Bengal Act IX of 1880 hereinafter referred to as the Act). He called on the petitioner to pay the amount of cess on the said amount of Rs. 42,000/- and odd, treating the same as one of the items making up the total annual net profits from the mine being "admittedly derived from the coal mine". . . . "in the proceeds of extracting coal and by use of the company's instruments, equipments and stuffs''. He observed that the petitioner in earlier years did not make such claim. The decision of the Cess Deputy Collector was not interfered with in the appeal by the collector, Burdwan, as the assessment according to him, was not contrary to the provisions of the Cess Act and Rule 103 of the Rules and because the income was received by the employment of the machinery and staff attached to the mine.;