19. Upon careful perusal of the
aforementioned grounds, it is abundantly clear
that without giving better particulars or clearly
spelling out specific grievances, only aforesaid
grounds are incorporated in the Petition with
prayer to struck down the provisions of Section 55
of the Maharashtra Rent Control Act, 1999, on the
ground that the same is beyond competence of State
Legislature. The Supreme Court in the case of
Amrit Banaspati Co. Ltd. vs. Union of India and
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others, cited supra, in Para 6 of the Judgment
held as under:
"In the result, following the view taken by this court in ' Amrit Vanaspati Co. Ltd. vs. Union of India' (supra), the present petition is allowed and the respondents are directed to permit the petitioner to utilise the credit already earned prior t the notification issued on July 23, 1996".
26. A statute is presumed to be constitutionally correct. Amrit Banaspati Co. Ltd. v. Union of IndiaAIR 1995 SC 1340 and Shri Ram Krishna Dalmia v. Justice S.R. Tendolkar AIR 1958 SC 538 at page 547. The burden is on the party who challenges constitutionality to establish that a statute is unconstitutional. The first contention of Mr. Gopal Chakraborty, learned counsel for the applicant, regarding constitutionality of the provisions relating to levy of sales tax on sales of imported sugar, is that since sugar is a goods of special importance and is covered by Section 14(viii) of Central Act, which did not make a distinction between India made sugar and foreign made sugar, the distinction or classification made by the State Legislature by means of entry 79 of Schedule I and later by incorporating entry 70A in Schedule IV of 1994 Act is hit by Article 14 of the Constitution, and no such classification is permissible. Mr. K.K. Saha, advocate appearing for respondents, submitted that the State Legislature independently exercises its legislative powers under List II of Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India, and except where specific mention is made about any restriction, it is free to enact under the entries of List II without any control from any enactment by the Parliament. He further submitted that the State Legislature had the competence to pick and choose subject-matter, persons, goods, taxing event, etc., in a taxing law. Mr. Chakraborty wanted to assert that Indian made sugar and imported, foreign made, sugar are not commercially different goods, and hence they cannot be separately classified.