BRINDCO SALES CORPN Vs. COM OF EXCISE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this batch of writ petitions, the petitioners seek the issue of a Writ or Order or Direction, declaring the circular No. CR. 41124/81/Ex/G2, dt. 30-8-1981 issued by the Commissioner of Excise, Andhra Pradesh, as illegal and un-constitutional and to restrain him and his subordinates not to enforce the said circular. The circular, which is challenged, reads as follows :

(2.) As the facts are more or less similar in all the writ petitions, it if sufficient to refer to the facts mentioned in one of the writ petitions viz., W. P. No. 7842 of 1981. The petitioner-firm, Brindco Sales Corporation, New Delhi, is a whole-sale dealer in Indian made foreign liquor having its headquarters at New Delhi. The said firm has the agency for distributing the products of Mc. Dowell and Co., and also Phipson and Co., Mc. Dowell and Co., have their factories at Varnad in Kerala State and at Kumbilgodu in Bangalore, Karnataka State. In the course of their business, the petitioner-firm purchased the Indian made foreign liquor products from the said two factories. They obtained an import permit issued by the Dtlhi Administration in Form L-I for the year 1981-82, and an export permit from the concerned authorities in Kerala and Karnataka states. The stocks purchased by the petitioner-firm are moved by lorries from the States of Kerala and Karnataka to New Delhi on the basis of import and export permits issued by the Delhi Administration and the concerned authorities in Kerala and Karnataka respectively. The lorries transporting the said liquor from the States of Kerala and Karnataka to Delhi have to pass through many States including the State of Andhra Pradesh. While so, the respondent herein, the Commissioner of Excise, Andhra Pradesh, issued the impugned circular purporting to exercise the power under Sec. 3 of the A. P. Excise Act insisting that the lorries passing through the State of Andhra Pradesh have to obtain a transport permit for passing through the State of Andhra Pradesh.

(3.) The petitioner challenged the said circular as illegal and unconstitutional and as ultra vires of the poweri of the Commissioner of Excise. Sri Babul Reddy, the learned Counsel for the petitioner, submitted that there is no provision, in the A. P. Excise Act or the Rules made thereunder empowering the Commissioner of Excise to impose this condition of obtaining a transport permit for transport of Indian made foreign liquor from the States other than Andhra Pradesh to another State and that Sec. 3 of the A. P. Excise Act does not empower the Commissioner to issue the impugned circular.