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3. Under the Tea Act, 1953 Parliament had assumed con- trol of the tea industry including the tea trade and control of tea prices. Under s. 25 of that Act a cess on tea pro- duced in India had also been imposed. The State legislation imposing a cess on despatches of tea was, therefore, also void for want of legislative competence as it pertained to a covered field. [304B]

4. The petitioners are entitled to the refund of cess paid by them. [304D] & CIVIL ORIGINAL JURISDICTION: Writ Petitions Nos. 2687, 5822 of 1983 etc. (Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India). Dr. Shankar Ghosh, T.S.K. Iyer, M.L. Lahoty, P.S. Jha, D.D. Gupta, S.K. Jain, D.P. Mukherjee, S.R. Srivastava, P.N. Tewari and Parijat Sinha for the petitioners. Tapas Ray, Anil B. Dewan, T.C. Roy, G.S. Chatterjee, Dalip Sinha and H.K. Puri for the respondents. The judgment of the Court was delivered by PATHAK, CJ. By these writ petitions and transferred cases the petitioners challenge the validity of the levy of cess in respect of tea estates under the West Bengal Rural Employment and Production Act, 1976.