{"id":44911,"date":"1981-08-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1981-08-24T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.legalindia.com\/judgments\/a-padmanabhan-vs-district-collector-trivandrum-on-25-august-1981"},"modified":"2017-09-02T21:26:15","modified_gmt":"2017-09-02T15:56:15","slug":"a-padmanabhan-vs-district-collector-trivandrum-on-25-august-1981","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.legalindia.com\/judgments\/a-padmanabhan-vs-district-collector-trivandrum-on-25-august-1981","title":{"rendered":"A. Padmanabhan vs District Collector, Trivandrum on 25 August, 1981"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"docsource_main\">Kerala High Court<\/div>\n<div class=\"doc_title\">A. Padmanabhan vs District Collector, Trivandrum on 25 August, 1981<\/div>\n<div class=\"doc_citations\">Equivalent citations: AIR 1982 Ker 177<\/div>\n<div class=\"doc_author\">Author: V Khalid<\/div>\n<div class=\"doc_bench\">Bench: V Khalid<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<pre><\/pre>\n<p>ORDER<\/p>\n<p>V. Khalid, J.  <\/p>\n<p> 1. The petitioner was an assessee under the Travancore General Sales Tax Act. He was conducting a business in coir about 30 years back. Revenue recovery proceedings were initiated against him under the Travancore-Cochin Revenue Recovery Act, 1951, for the arrears of sales tax due for the years 1125, 1950-51 and 1951-52. 3 cents of land which belonged to him were sold in public auction in 1961 pursuant to revenue recovery proceedings. This did not satisfy the entire arrears due. Therefore, the petitioner was served with a notice, Ext. P1. dated 23-7-1980 under Section 65 of the Kerala Revenue Recovery Act, 1968 informing him that he would be arrested in case the balance amount was not paid. Hence this petition to quash Ext. P1 and all further proceedings pursuant to Ext. P1.\n<\/p>\n<p> 2. It is not disputed that the arrears for which revenue recovery proceedings were taken were for the relevant years mentioned above and that the property was sold pursuant to the action taken under the Travancore-Cochin Revenue Recovery Act.\n<\/p>\n<p> 3. The question for consideration is whether the proposed action as per Ext. P-1 under the Kerala Revenue Recovery Act is valid in law.\n<\/p>\n<p> 4. The petitioner&#8217;s case is that proceedings under Section 65 of the Kerala Revenue Recovery Act for his arrest can be taken only after the service of the written demand under Section 34 of the said Act and after being satisfied of the conditions laid down in Section 65 and that such a notice has not been issued. The State in the counter-affidavit states that such a notice was issued to him. I do not think it necessary to try to resolve this factual dispute between the parties,  <\/p>\n<p> 5. Section 87 of the Kerala Revenue Recovery Act, 1968 repeals among other Acts the Travancore-Cochin Revenue Recovery Act, 1951 also. There is no saving clause in the section which either keeps alive the action taken under the repealed Act or which enables the authorities to pursue the remedies once initiated under the said Act. That being so, what falls for decision is whether the proceedings initiated under Section 65 of the Kerala Act are sustainable.\n<\/p>\n<p> 6.    provisions     of     statutes     like  this whereunder    the    concerned      authorities have powers to attach and sell properties or to deny a citizen his personal liberty have to be very strictly    construed    and unless  the authorities     exercising     such powers satisfy the Court about the source of such power the Courts will    be    extremely slow in going to the rescue    of the authorities to uphold the action taken by them. The repealed Act did not contain a provision similar to Section 65    of    the Kerala Revenue Recovery Act. Therefore arrest of a defaulter under the   repealed Act was not permissible. Is it permissible to resort to Section  65  of the Kerala Act and arrest the defaulter? My answer    is in the negative. Unless it is possible    to locate the specific conferment    of power to   continue   the     recovery     proceedings, even by resort to Section 65, arrest in    such cases has to be    faulted.    Act 15 of    1968: was   enacted  to   consolidate  and     amend the laws relating  to the  recovery of  arrears of public revenue.    All modes    of recovery which were    permissible    under the repealed Act can be resorted to    for recovery of arrears which fell due before the new Act came into force. To apply a provision like Section 65 of the new Act   for such arrears would be to make it retrospective in    operation.      This     cannot be allowed.\n<\/p>\n<p> 7. Support for this conclusion of mine can be had from a case decided by a Division Bench of this Court reported in Kunjacko v. Tax Recovery Officer,<\/p>\n<p>1966 Ker LT 167. In that case, arrears due under the Travancore I.T. Act and the I.-T. Act were sought to be realised by recourse to arrest of the petitioner there under the relevant provisions of the I.T. Act, which power was not available to the authorities under the Travancore Act. The Division Bench was considering a writ of habeas corpus filed by the aggrieved person. It was held that the petitioner there was not liable to be arrested or detained for non-payment of the tax under the Travancore I.-T. Act, 1121 apparently on the ground that the said Act did not confer on the authorities a power to arrest the defaulter. The principle enunciated by the Division Bench applies squarely to this case. I hold that the proposed arrest in this case is not permissible in law.\n<\/p>\n<p> In the result, I quash Ext P1 and all proceedings pursuant to Ext. P1 and allow this petition. The parties are directed to bear their costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kerala High Court A. Padmanabhan vs District Collector, Trivandrum on 25 August, 1981 Equivalent citations: AIR 1982 Ker 177 Author: V Khalid Bench: V Khalid ORDER V. Khalid, J. 1. The petitioner was an assessee under the Travancore General Sales Tax Act. He was conducting a business in coir about 30 years back. Revenue recovery [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-high-court","category-kerala-high-court"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A. 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