EAST GODAVARI COCONUT AND TOBACCO MARKET COMMITTEE Vs. KRISHNA COCONUT COMPANY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals raise a common question of law as to the true intendment and scope of section 11 of the Madras Commercial Crops Market Act (Madras Act XX of 1933), and have been referred for the decision of a Division Bench by Mr. Justice Manohar Pershad.

(2.) The Madras Commercial Crops Market Act (hereinafter referred to as ' the Act' ) was enacted in the year 1933 by the Madras Legislature. The object of the Act, as stated in the Preamble, is to provide for the better regulation of buying and selling of commercial crops and for that purpose to establish markets and make rules for their proper administration. The Act was amended from time to time, and being a law in force immediately before the formation of the State of Andhra, its provisions were made applicable to the territories comprised within that State. Under the Act, the expression ' commercial crop' has been defined to mean cotton, groundnut or tobacco and to include any other crop or product notified by the State Government in the Gazette as a commercial crop for the purposes of the Act. The Government of the composite State of Madras, in exercise of the powers conferred on them by section 3 of the Act, issued a notification on 27th June, 1949, declaring coconut and copra as commercial crops. By virtue of another notification issued by them, the Government also declared the District of East Godavari as a notified area, in respect of coconut and copra. On 5th December, 1950, a further notification was issued establishing a Market Committee at Rajahmundry vesting it with juriscition over the notified area.

(3.) Under section 5 of the Act, when a Market Committee is established in a notified area, no person shall do any business in the notified crops within that area except under a licence and in accordance with the conditions thereof. Under section 11, which is the material provision with which we are principally concerned here, the Market Committee is empowered, subject to such rules as may be made in this behalf, to levy fees on the notified commercial crop or crops ' bought and sold ' in the notified area. Section 18 enables the State Government to frame rules consistent with the Act for carrying out all or any of the purposes thereof.