- (1.) ON the 16th of December 1947 professional tax was imposed by means of a notification. No. 2105-B and C-47/10850, by the District Board, Karnal. The plaintiffs respondents filed a suit on the 18th of November 1952 for a declaration and injunction that the tax In dispute was ultra vires and void and for restraining the District Board from realising the tax. The plaintiff are the employees of the Central Government in the Daily Farm and Agricultural Research, Substation, karnal, admittedly situated within the jurisdiction of the District Board. The two Courts below have decreed their claim holding that the notification violated the provisions of Section 31 (6) of the Punjab District Boards Act (Act XX of 1883 ).
(2.) THE District Board has preferred the present appeal and Mr. H. L. Sarin, the learned counsel for the respondents, has principally relied on the Punjab District Boards (Tax Validating) Act (No. XXVII of 1955) which has validated three notifications including the one in question. Section 2 of the amending Act reads thus: "2. Notwithstanding anything contained in the Punjab District Boards Act, 1883 (Act XX of 1883), the taxes imposed by District Boards specified in the first column of the Schedule, the imposition of which was notified in the notifications specified in each case in the second column of the Schedule, shall be deemed to have been legally imposed with effect from the dates so specified in the third column of the Schedule in each case as the date from which such taxes were imposed or were to come into force, and to remain legally in force, until altered, repealed or amended by competent authority.
(3.) IT is clear that if this provision is valid, it would cover the present case and the impugned tax would be unassailable. The learned counsel for the respondents has conceded that the Legislature was fully competent to pass the validating Act and to impose the impugned tax with retrospective effect. He has, however, contested the appeal on the ground that the validating Act violates the provisions of Article 20 (1) of the Constitution. His contention is that two out of the three notifications included in the Schedule contain penal provisions; the validity of those provisions would expose citizens to penal actions for acts done which, at the time of their commission, were not offences under the law then in force. The learned counsel has, however, admitted that the notification in question, in the present appeal, does not contain any penal provisions. If that is so, then I fail to understand how it is open to the present plaintiffs respondents to assail the constitutionality of the amending Act on the ground that it validates some other notifications as well which may possibly be hit by Art. 20 of the Constitution. The true principle is, as observed by Das J. , (as he then was) in Dwarkadas Shrinivas v. Sholapur spinning and Weaving Co. Ltd. , AIR 1954 SC 119, at p. 134. "that only a person who is directly affected by a law can challenge the validity of that law and that a person whose own right or interest has not been violated or threatened cannot impugn the law on the ground that somebody else's right has been infringed; the same principle must prevail irrespective of the form of the proceeding in which the question of constitutionality is raised. ";