Jaora Sugar Mills (P) Ltd vs State Of Madhya Pradesh And Others on 19 April, 1965
Argument has also been advanced by Mr. Krishnamurthy
Iyer that the impugned Act is a colourable piece of
legislation because what is sought to be done is to
validate the levy made under provisions of law which were
found to have been repealed. It is further pointed out that
those provisions of law were found by this Court to be
similar to the provisions of the Central Execises and Salt
Act and as such, those provisions were beyond the competence
of a State Legislature. Any levy made under those provisions
cannot, according to the learned counsel, be validated by
the State Legislature. The above argument has a seeming
plausibility, but, on deeper examination, we find it to be
not tenable. It is no doubt true, as stated by
(1) [1970] 2 S.C.R. 52
705
this Court in the case of Jaora Sugar Mills (P) Ltd. v.
State of Madhya Pradesh & Ors..(1) that when an Act passed
by a State Legislature is invalid on the ground that the
State Legislature did not have legislative competence to
deal with the topics covered by it, in that event even
Parliament cannot validate such an Act, because the effect
of such attempted validation, in substance, would be to
confer legislative competence on the State Legislature in
regard to a field or topic which, by the relevant provisions
of the schedules to the Constitution, is outside its
jurisdiction. Where a topic is not included within the
relevant List dealing with the legislative competence of the
State Legislature, Parliament, by making a law cannot
attempt to confer such legislative competence on the State
Legislatures. The above principle would, however, have no
application where, as in the present case, what is sought to
be done is to validate the recovery of licence fee for
stocking and vending of tobacco. The impugned provisions
under which that levy is sought to be made with a
retrospective effect have nothing to do, as already pointed
out above, with production and manufacture of tobacco. The
levy is sought to be made as luxury tax which is within the
competence of the State Legislature and not as excise duty
which is beyond the legislative competence of the State
Legislature. If the levy in question can be justified under
a provision which is within the legislative competence of
the State Legislature, the levy shall be held to be validly
imposed and cannot be considered to be impermissible.