Judgment

MITTER, J.- All these appeals and Writ Petitions are directed against the Andhra Pradesh Motor Vehicles Taxation Act (V of 1963) and notifications issued thereunder. In the first group of appeals, the notification challenged is G O. Ms. No. 601Home (Transport II) Department dated 27th March, 1963. In the second group of appeals Nos. 1439-1441/68 and in the two writ petitions the impugned notification is numbered as G. O. Ms. No. 435 Home (Transport II) Department dated March 28, 1968.

2. The appellants and the writ petitioners all carry on transport business in the State of Andhra Pradesh under stage carriage permits granted by the Transport authorities under the Motor Vehicles Act IV of 1939. Their complaint is against the ever increasing burden of taxation they are called upon to bear which is said to have passed the breaking point. A short history of the taxes levied in the area which came to Andhra Pradesh from the State of Madras and the increase thereof from stage to stage by the new State based on the seating capacity of buses with stage carriage permits referred to in the pleadings is recited in the judgment of this Court in Nazeeria Motor Service v. State of Andhra Pradesh. (1970) 2 SCR 52 . The latest legislation on the subject which was before this Court in that case was the validating Act of 1961 raising the rate to Rs. 37.50 per seat per quarter per bus effective from April 1, 1962. The Court upheld the impost. Thereafter, the Andhra Pradesh Motor Vehicles Taxation Act (Act V of 1963) came into force on the 20th March of that year after receiving the assent of the President on February 2, 1963. This is the Act now in force. It is an Act to consolidate and amend the law relating to levy a tax on motor vehicles in the State of Andhra Pradesh. Under Section 3 (1) of the Act the State Government is empowered by notification from time to time. to direct that a tax shall be levied on every motor vehicle used or kept for use in a public place in the State. Under sub-section (2) of Section 3 the notification is to specify the class of motor vehicles on which, the rates for the periods of which and the date from which, the tax is to be levied. Under the proviso to the sub-section the rates of tax are not to exceed the maximum specified in column (2) of the First Schedule. Section 17 of the Act vests in the State Government power to amend the Schedules in the manner prescribed.

3. On March 27, 1963 a notification No. G. O. M. 601 was issued by the State Government in its Transport Department imposing a tax of Rs. 60/- per seat per quarter on vehicles running less than 100 miles per day and Rs. 67-50 on vehicles covering a higher mileage. A crop of writ petition was filed before the High Court in the year 1963 praying for the issue of a writ restraining the State from enforcing the provisions of the Act of 1963 and of the notification, dated March 27, 1963. By a common judgment and order dated September 6, 1963 the High Court dismissed all the writ petitions. The first group of appeals arises out of this judgment.

4. It was contended on behalf of the petitioners before the High Court in that case, the appellants in the first group of appeals before us, that the statute was inconsistent with the doctrine of freedom of trade not commerce embodied in Part XIII of the Constitution and secondly that it infringed the equality clause enshrined in Art. 14. An attempt was made on behalf of the petitioners by reference to certain figures regarding the income of the State from this source of tax and the expenditure pertaining to this topic that the taxes were levied more for purposes of general revenue of the State than as a benefit for the facilities afforded to the operators of transport vehicles since the taxes were far in excess of the requirements for the construction of new roads and bridges and the maintenance of existing ones. The High Court found itself unable to accept the above submission and on a scrutiny of the budge