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(ii) The one cardinal principle which flows from Kewal Krishan Puri's case is that any fee or money realised should not be diverted to any other purpose except for the benefit of the purchaser/seller. What would be the nature of the service, when and how it should be rendered and in what measure is entirely a matter for the market committees to decide or determine. So long as the money is realised, even though on the higher side, but in spent on the extention and expansion of the markets, market yards, market facilities, godowns, rest houses, buildings, even roads leading up to the markets, that would be fully within the concept of a fee and could not be labelled as a tax on the purchasers at the auction of goods or articles in the market. [161 H; 159 E] In the instant case, though the fee appears to be on the higher side but there is unimpeachable evidence to show that the entire amount realised has not been spent on some other object or purpose but has been kept in reserve for developing the markets during the course of the coming 10-12 years. Though this period is large but it cannot be said that there is no nexus between the services rendered and the fee realised. Whether the development takes place immediately or in the course of a few years, so long as it is done within a reasonable period it cannot be said that the fee amounts to a tax and is, therefore, ultra vires. [161 B-C] Kewal Krishan Puri & Anr. v. State of Punjab & Ors. [1979] 3 SCR 1217, Southern Pharmaceuticals & Chemicals, Trichur & Ors. etc. v. State of Kerala & Ors. etc. [1982] 1 SCR 519 and Sreenivasa General Traders & Ors. v. State of Andhra Pradesh, [1983] 3 SCC 353 referred to. Per Mukharji, J.

1. There is no correlation between the enhancement of the rate of the market fee leviable under s. 65(2) from one per cent to two per cent and the services rendered or proposed to be rendered by the Market Committees and, therefore, the enhancement is invalid in law, It is not necessary to establish the element of quid pro quo in regard to market fees with arithmetical exactitude, but an amount of fee must be earmarked for rendering services to the buyers in the notified market area and a good and substantial portion of it must be shown to be expended for those purposes. The good and substantial portion earmarked for rendering services may be in the neighbourhood of two thirds or three-fourths and it must be shown with reasonable certainty as being spent for rendering services of the kind mentioned in Kewal Krishan Puri's case. [213 F; 213 B-C] In facts and circumstances of the case, the High Court should have held that there is no correlation and that there is no justification for enhancement of the rate of the market fee. The learned judges of the High Court have failed to exercise the jurisdiction vested in them by law by not recording any finding one way or the other on the question of correlation, and that they have clothed the Market Committees and the Chief Marketing Officer with their jurisdiction to decide the question whether the enhancement is justified and if not justified to effect a down-ward revision wherever necessary. [220 A-B] Kewal Krishan Puri v. State of Punjab, [1973] 3 SCR 1217, followed.

With respect, I am not able to see how an why the observations made in Kewal Krishan Puri's case (supra) have to be confined to the special facts of that case. Kewal Krishan Puri's case arose out of proceedings taken under the Punjab Agricultural Produce Markets Act, 1961 which is an Act for the better regulation of the purchase, sale, storage and processing of agricultural produce and for the establishment of markets for agricultural produce in that State. The objects of that Act and the Act with which we are concerned in these cases are almost the same. The maximum rate of market fee which could be levied by the various market committees under s. 23 of the Punjab Act was fifty paise for every hundred rupees. The fee was raised from time to time. A number of writ petitions were filed in the High Court challenging the power of the Board to increase the levy. That is what has happened in these cases arising under the Act which relates to Karnataka State. The question whether quid pro quo was necessary and to what extent and what should be done by the Market Committees before the fee could be raised fell for considration in that case as in these cases. In Sreenivash General Traders' case (supra) which arose under the Andhra Pradesh (Agricultural Produce and Livestock) Markets Act, 1966 the market fee which was 25 paise per hundred rupees was C raised to 50 paise in 1972 and eventually to one rupee for every hundred rupees. The contention was that increase in the rate of market from 50 paise to one rupee was illegal on the ground that there was no correlation between the increase and the services rendered. That is exactly the position in the present case where the increase was from one per cent to two per cent of the price paid by the buyers. Therefore, with respect I an unable to see how and why what l-as been decided in Kewal Krishan Puri's case (supra) should he confined to the facts of that case alone. Again with respect, I consider myself bound by the decision in Kewal Krishan Puri's case and that even the Bench of which I am one of three is bound by that decision having regard to the principles governing precedents and the necessity to avoid confusion in the minds of the High Courts and Subordinate Courts as regards the correct view to be followed by them. Fortunately, in these cases, as stated above, both sides relied upon the decision in Kewal Krishan Puri's case (supra) which inter alia laid down of following principles:

It may be noticed that even the High Court has given similar directions to the Market Committees and the Chief Marketing Officer to see whether there is justification for increasing the market fee from one per cent to two per cent on the invitation of the learned Advocate General appearing for the State and the learned Consel appearing for the Market Committee as stated above.

Now that I have set out the facts and the decision of the High Court to the extent necessary and the arguments of the learned counsel for the parties and the lay bearing on the questions involved as It understand the same I proceed to record my findings. The principles of law laid down by the Bench of five learned Judges of this Court in Kewal Krishan Puri's case (supra) so long as they have not been dissented from, varied or set aside by a larger Bench are binding, with respect, not only on smaller Benches of this Court but also undoubtedly on the High Courts and other Subordinate Courts and parties similarly placed. I have already pointed out that the facts and the points which arose for consideration in Kewal Krishan Puri's case (supra), Sreenivasa General Traders' case (supra) and the present cases are broadly similar. All these cases relate to market fees and the enhancement thereof. I have set out the seven points laid down by this Court in Kewal Krishan Puri's case (supra) in the earlier part of my judgment and four of those points which have a direct bearing on these cases in the preceding paras. It 16 not necessary to establish the element of quid pro quo in regard to market fees with arithmetical exactitude, but an amount of fee must be earmarked for rendering services to the buyers in the notified market area and a good and substantial portion of it must be shown to be expended for those purposes. The good and substantial portion earmaked for rendering services may be in the neighbourhood of two-thirds or three-fourths and it must be shown with reasonable certainly as being spent for rendering services of the kind mentioned in Kewal Krishan Puri's case (supra). If the market fee is sought to be raised, proper budgets, estimates, balance-sheets showing the money in hand and in deposit, expenditure on projects to be undertaken etc. should be carefully prepared. Then and only then there may be a legal justification for raising the rate of the market fee further to a reasonable extent, for only then the authorities will be able to know the correct position and to decide reasonably as to what extent the raising of the market fee can be justified, taking an over-all view of the matter. But in the present cases, none of these requirements was satisfied before the market fee was raised The Market Committees had no such material before them before they raised the rate of the market fee from one per cent uniformly to two per cent by amendment of the bye-law on the mere direction of the Chief Marketing Officer. These facts are not in dispute. Therefore, with respect, the High Court erred in law in not applying the principle of law laid down by this Court in Kewal Krishan Puri's case (supra) and failing to strike down the enhancement of the market fee from one per cent to two per cent on account of the failure to comply with the principles laid down in Kewal Krishan Puri's case (supra). The State Government and the Market Committees appear rightly to have retraced their steps by reducing the rate of the market are from two per cent to one per cent by the Circular No. SMD-268/ RGN-83 dated 27.2 1984 with effect from 1.4.1984. The learned Judges of the High Court themselves do not appear to have been quite happy about how the enhancement of the market fee had been made, for they have observed in para 61 of their judgment, as mentioned above, that the question might become a live issue if the Market Committees were to amend the bye-laws made under s.l48 read with s.65(2) of the Act in future without giving an opportunity to the affected interests of being heard in regard to the proposed enhancement. Even the learned Advocate General appearing for the State and the learned Counsel appearing for the Market Committees had stated before the learned Judges of the High Court that it would be eminently desirable that the Market Committees should adopt some reasonable procedure in that behalf and that the amendment to s.148 of the Act made by Ordinance 22 of 1981 dispensing with the need for prior publication and hearing of the affected interests was only intended to cure the defect in making the impugned amendment to the bye-law for avoiding 'great public inconvenience which may result from the invalidation of the bye-law and there was no intention to make the deletion, brought about by the Ordinance, a permanent feature'. They submitted before the learned Judges of the High Court that any reasonable procedure which may be suggested by them would be adopted in future 'even if there is no such legal compulsion'. In these circumstances, the High Court has observed: "It appears to us that before the Market Committees propose to amend a bye- law to make an upward revision of the rate of fee, in future, the Market Committees must first follow the directions of the Supreme Court (given) in para 55 in Kewal Krishan Puri's case". The learned Judges have thereafter given the directions contained in the judgment in that case as mentioned above. With respect, I am unable to see how the directions given by this Court in Kewal Krishan Puri's case (supra) should be followed only in future and how there is no compulsion in law for the Market Committees to follow the directions already given by this Court in that case and how this could be dispensed with or ignored for the purpose of the impugned enhancement. with respect I think that the High Court has erred in not applying the principles of law laid down by this Court in Kewal Krishan Puri's case (supra) and in observing that they should be applied only in future. In these circumstances, I hold that the enhancement of the market fee from one per cent to two per cent by amendment of the bye-law under the directions of the Chief Marketing Officer without complying with the principles of law down in Kewal Krishan Puri's case (supra) is bad in law. The same would be the position even if the amendment to the bye-law made in accordance with s. 148 of the Act as it is stood before the amendment by the Ordinance 22 of 1981.