V NAGAPPA THIMMAPPA Vs. IRON ORE MINES CESS COMMISSIONER FOR MYSORE BANGALORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners in these writ petitions are operating iron mines within the State of Mysore upon lease granted by the State Government subject to payment of royalty and other conditions stipulated in relevant leases. These writ petitions have been heard together because all of them raise the same question of the validity or constitutionality of the Iron Ore Mines Labour Welfare Cess Act (Central Act58 of 1961) and also because the arguments in support of that contention are same or similar. The common prayer in all these petitions is for declaration of the invalidity of the statute with the consequential relief of quashing certain demands made pursuant to the said Act.

(2.) The Act is a short one containing only eight sections. It is described as an Act to provide for the levy and collection of a cess on iron ore for the financing of activities to promote the welfare of labour employed in the iron ore mining industry. The first section sets out the name of the Act, its territorial extent and provides that it shall be brought into force from such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint; by an amendment effected by Act No. 24 of 1963, the Central Government was authorised to appoint different dates for the coming into force of the Act for different States. So far as the Mysore State is concerned, the Act was brought into force as from 1st October 1963.

(3.) Sections 2 and 3 of the Act contain the principal or the most important provisions thereof. As the arguments also are to a considerable extent related to the said provisions and the language of the said sections, the entire sections are copied below:-