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TMI Blog1957 (12) TMI 23X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... February 14, 1950 and the question for decision turns upon the construction of s. 66(1)(0) of the C. P. Berar Municipalities Act (Act II of 1922) which in this judgment will be termed the Act. A short recital of the facts of the case will suffice for its decision. The appellant is a company which has its spinning and weaving mills at Yeotmal. The appellant's bales of cotton are transported from Yeotmal to Nagpur by road and vehicles carrying them pass through the limits of Wardha Municipality. The goods being in transit, the vehicles carrying them do no more than use the road which traverses the municipal limits of Wardha and is a P.W.D. road. The goods are neither unloaded nor reloaded at Wardha but are merely carried across through the municipal area. The Municipal Committee purporting to act under s. 66(1)(0) of the Act and r. I of the rules made thereunder collected ₹ 240 as terminal tax on these goods on the ground that they were ex ported by the appellant from the limits of the Municipality of Wardha. The appellant thereupon claimed a refund of this sum. On refusal by the Municipality the appellant took an appeal to the Deputy Commissioner, Wardha which was sen ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... under the control of the Government or of the committee ; (g) fees on the registration of cattle sold within the limits of the municipality; (h) a latrine or conservancy tax payable by the occupier (or owner) upon private latrines, privies or cesspools, or upon premises or compounds cleansed by municipal agency; (j) a tax for the construction and maintenance of public latrines; (k) a water-rate, where water is supplied by the committee ; (l) a lighting rate where the lighting of public streets,places and buildings is undertaken by the committee ; (m) a drainage tax, where a system of drainage has been introduced; (n) a tax payable by the occupiers of buildings or lands within the limits of the municipality, according to their circumstances and property within those imits; (o) a terminal tax on goods or animals imported into or exported from the limits of a municipality : Provided that a terminal tax under this clause and an octroi under clause (e) shall not be in force in any municipality at the same time; and (p) a tax on- (i) persons travelling by railway to or from a municipality to which pilgrims resort, or (ii) pilgrims visiting a shrine wi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 'to bring in' and 'export' from the Latin word exportare which means to carry out but these words are not to be interpreted only according to their literal derivations. Lexico-logically they do not have any reference to goods in'transit'a word derived from transire bearing a meaning similar to transport, i.e., to go across. The dictionary meaning of the words 'import' and 'export' is not restricted to their derivative meaning but bear other connotations also. According to Webster's International Dictionary the word import means to bring in from a foreign or external source; to introduce from without; especially to bring (wares or merchandise) into a place or country from a foreign country in the transactions of commerce; opposed to export. Similarly export according to Webster's International Dictionary means to carry away; to remove; to carry or send abroad especially to foreign countries as merchandise or commodities in the way of commerce; the opposite of import . The Oxford Dictionary gives a similar meaning to both these words. The word transit in the Oxford Dictionary means the action or fact of passing across or through ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... its whether they are intended for consumption within the city or whether they are', merely in transit through the city to some other place . This decision rested on the definition of the words import and terminal tax without taking into consideration the meaning of 'octroi' which implies consumption, use or sale. Besides these observations were really obiter because the court held that the goods never entered the limits of the Municipality and consequently no tax was chargeable. Dalvadi -Maganlal Bhagwandas v. Ahmedabad Municipality (1) was a case in which bricks manufactured within the limits of the Ahmedabad Municipality had in order to be carried to the place of business of the manufacturer, which was in another part of the town, to be temporarily taken out of the limits of the Municipality and re-entered at another point. The re-entry was held to be import on the basis of the dictionary meaning of the word and because import had no reference to and was not qualified by any consideration of the place of manufacture or place of consumption. Rajadhyaksha J., said at p. 137: There is no such limitation on the meaning of the word import which mu ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... into the terminal tax limits from outside those limits . (1) A.I.R (1945) Nag. 197. (2) I.L.R. (1946) Nag. 99. (4) A. I. R. (1936) All. 83. (3)A.I.R. (1936) All. 743. (5) I. L. R. (1940) All. 4. In none of these cases was the argument as to the qualification stemming from the use of the words terminal tax considered nor was the signification of the word terminal as a prefix to the word tax discussed. The respondent also relied on Muller v. Baldwin (1) where it was held that coals exported from the Port must be taken to have been used in its ordinary meaning of carried out of the Port and therefore included coals taken out of the port in a steamer as bunker coals that is, coals taken on board for the purpose of consumption on the voyage. The argument that the term exported must receive a qualified interpretation and that it means taken for the. purpose of trade only was rejected. Lush J. said at p. 461 :- There is nothing in the language of the Act to shew that the word exported was used in any other than its ordinary sense............. Construing the words of the Act upon this principle, we feel bound to hold that coals carried away f ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he Tweed except Berwick and though the goods were actually unloaded above the Berwick bridge and out of the limits of the harbour it was substantially imported into the harbour. The vessel in that case was obliged to stop before passing the bridge and avail herself of the benefits of the machinery and works provided by the Commissioners and that was part of the means used towards the unloading of the vessel and it was argued that this would amount to import. Lord Cambell C. J. said: The argument on behalf of the plaintiff would be very pertinent if addressed to a Committee of the House of Commons in favour of making the harbour dues payable in such a case as the present. We can, (1) (1889) 14 App. Cas. 209, 220, 222. (2) (1889) 14 App. Cas. 417, 420. (3) (1915) A. C. 1100, 1108. (4) (1855) 24 L. J. Q. B. 185. however, look only to what the legislature has enacted, in order to see whether this burthen is cast upon the defendants. The dues are only to be paid upon goods imported into the harbour of Berwick, the limits of which are defined by the Act, and which does not extend above the bridge. Now, has this iron been so imported ? It is admitted that, if it had been carrie ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... legislature the right to sell is connected with the payment of the duties . Continuing the learned Chief Justice at p. 447 observed: Sale is the object of importation, and is an essential ingredient of that intercourse, of which importation constitutes a part. It is as essential an ingredient, as indispensable to the existence of the entire thing, then, as importation itself.................. This supports the contention raised that import is not merely the bringing into but comprises something more i.e. incorporating and mixing up of the goods imported with the mass of the property in the local area. The concept of import as implying some. thing brought for the purpose of sale or being kept is supported by the observations of Kelly C. B. in Harvey v. The, Mayor and Corporation of Lyme Regis (2). There the claim for a toll was made under the Harbour Act and the words for construction were goods landed or shipped within the same cobb or harbour Construing these words Kelly C. B. said: The ordinary meaning and purport of the words is perfectly clear, namely, that tolls are to be paid on goods substantially imported; that is, in fact, carried into the port for t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... even then the construction to be placed on the term should be the one that favours the tax-payer, in accordance with the principle of construction of taxing statutes, which must be strictly construed and in case of doubt must be construed against the taxing authorities and doubt resolved in favour of the taxpayer. In Crawford on Statutory Constructions in para. 257 at p. 504 the following passage pertaining to construction of taxing statutes taken from Bedford v. Johnson (1) is quoted: Statutes levying taxes or duties upon citizens will not be extended by implication beyond the clear import of the language used, nor will their operation be enlarged so as to embrace matters not specifically pointed out, although standing upon a close analogy, and all questions of doubt will be resolved against the government and in favour of the citizen, and because burdens are not to be, imposed beyond what the statute expressly imparts . In that case the court refused to regard automobile parking lots as falling within the scope of a statute which imposed a tax on general warehouse storage establishments. On this principle the word terminal must in the context be construed as having r ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Wardha Municipal Committee was imposed on certain class of goods imported and on others exported by railway or road. In 1935 the terminal tax was made leviable on goods carried by railway or air but the tax on entry of goods was imposable on goods for consumption, use or sale in a local area. Both these taxes have been continued by the Constitution. If the pre 1920 octroi and the post 1935 cess or tax on entry of goods is payable on -goods for consumption, use or sale, can it be said that the Constitution Act of 1915 as amended in 1919 or the Rules made thereunder intended to vary the nature of the tax by the introduction of item 8 in Sch. II ,under the Scheduled Tax Rules i.e. the tax became leviable on entry of goods or on their being taken out without their acquiring the qualification of incorporation with the mass of property of the local area. The presumption is against the imposition of new burdens. In the absence of clear intention to the contrary the incidence of the tax leviable under item 8 of Sch. II of the Schedule Tax Rules is incapable of having a different complexion from that which it had before 1920 or that which was clearly given after 1935. It was said in U. S. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... therein. The two sets of taxes are so distinct that they may be imposed simultaneously, one when they reach their destination at the end of a railway journey and the other when they enter the limits of a local area for the object above mentioned. But in both cases the activity in regard to the motion of the goods ends, in the one case as the goods are carried no further by railway and in the other as their entry is for consumption, use or sale. Keeping in view the terms and language and the legislative history of the section 66(1) we are unable to enlarge the terms of the section by mere construction so as to include within its operation goods which are in transit and are being transported across the jurisdictional limits of the Municipality. The Federal Court in Punjab Flour and General Mills Co. Ltd. v. Chief Officer, Corporation of City of Lahore (1) considered the meaning of the word (1) [1947] F.C.R. 17. terminal in a case which was brought from Lahore. There the Municipality of Lahore imposed a terminal tax in 1926 calculated on the gross weight Of Consignments or per tail as the case might be, at the rates and on the articles specified in the schedule, imported int ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Federal Court terminal has reference to the terminus of the railway or air i.e., the end of journey. The tax imposed in that case was held not to be a terminal tax but merely a cess on entry of goods into the local area within Entry No. 49 of List II even though it was imposed on railborne goods entering the municipal area. It is a noticeable feature of s. 66(1) that apart from the terminal tax there are 14 other heads of taxation imposable by the Municipality and in the case of each one of these 14 heads the tax is on some activity which takes place within the jurisdictional limits of the Municipality. This supports the contention of the appellant that the terminal tax leviable under cl. (o) properly construed must have reference to some activity within the municipal area i.e., the entry for the purpose of remaining within that area or commencement of journey from that area. We are, therefore, of the opinion that the terminal tax under s. 66(1)(o) is not leviable on goods which are in transit and are only carried across the limits of the Municipality, and would therefore allow this appeal, reverse the decision of the Nagpur High Court. The appellant will have its costs i ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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