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TMI Blog1963 (7) TMI 105X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tually made, or which could have been made, with due diligence, and, therefore, is levied with due regard to the incidence of the taxation . So said the Chief Justice of India in K. T. Mooppil Nair v. State of Keral AIR 1961 SC 552. This passage has been relied on by counsel for the petitioner in this case and he contends, that for the same reason for which the Supreme Court struck down the Travancore-Cochin Land Tax Act (15 of 1955 as amended by Act 10 of 1957), the statute impugned in this petition, the Kerala Plantations (Additional Tax) Act. 1960, must also be removed from the statute book. 2. It is necessary to refer to the arguments advanced in support of this contention. They were mainly two-fold. Firstly, it was urged that the State Legislature had no legislative competency to pass the Act impugned. Secondly, it was argued that the statute, the Kerala Plantations (Additional Tax) Act, 1960, is discriminatory and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. 3. In support of the first of these contentions, counsel referred to Item 45 in List II of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution. He said that the Act does not purport to be a tax on agricultural income and would ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... be in addition to the basic tax payable in respect of those lands under the Land Tax Act, 1955. It will be seen from Sub-section (1) of section 3 that the rate of tax is that specified in Schedule I. A glance at that schedule reveals that there is no tax on plantations which are below five acres in extent. And the tax on plantations above five acres in extent is: Sub-section (4) of Section 3 is significant It provides that the extent of plantations held by a person shall be determined in the manner specified in Schedule II. Schedule II is as under: For the purposes of the assessment of plantation tax payable by a person, the extent of plantations held by him shall be deemed to be the aggregate of the following, expressed in acres, namely: (i) the quotient obtained by dividing the total cumber of bearing cocoanut trees standing on all lands held by him by 85; (ii) the quotient obtained by dividing the total number of bearing arecanut trees standing on all lands held by him by 600; (iii) the quotient obtained by dividing the total number of yielding rubber plants standing on all lands held by him by 180, (iv) the quotient obtained by dividing the total number ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ax on land. The trees are taken into consideration so that the impost may not be arbitrary being neither related to the nature and type of the land nor the possible yield therefrom. I therefore negative the first of the contentions advanced by counsel before me that this is a legislation without legislative competence. This falls fairly under Item 45 of List II of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution. I am also advised that the tax that is sought to be levied by the Act is unconstitutional inasmuch as it offends Article 14 of the Constitution. The impugned Act has grouped out owners of certain lands to be subjected to the burden of a heavy and recurring tax. The classification for the purpose of the Act is unreasonable and it is not founded on any intelligible differentia between lands that are left out of the scope of the Act and that are made to bear the burden of taxation under the Act Nor does the basis, if any, of the classification has any rational relation to the object sought to be achieved by the Act . From this paragraph what I understand is that there is an attempt to tax only the plantations and not other types of land which, perhaps, might yield income ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n, any taxing statute is found to contravene Article 14, it would be open to Courts to strike it down as denying to the citizens the equality before the law guaranteed by Article 14 . And in AIR 1962 SC 1733 it is said: But in deciding whether a taxation law is discriminatory or not it is necessary to bear in mind that the State has a wide discretion in selecting the persons or objects it will tax, and that a statute is not open to attack on the ground that it taxes some persons or objects and not others. It is only when within the range of its selection, the law operates unequally, and that cannot be justified on the basis of any valid classification, that it would be violative of Article 14. 7. I may refer to a passage extracted in the judgment of the Supreme Court in AIR 1962 SC 1733 from Willis on Constitutional Law .pages 587: A State does not have to tax everything in order to tax something. It is allowed to pick and choose districts, objects, persons, methods and even rates for taxation if it does so reasonably ..... And in page 1147 of the Constitution of the United States of America, 1952 Edition, it is said: The power of the State to classif ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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