Judgment

FAZAL ALI, J.:- What appears to be a short and simple point has been the subject matter of a serious divergence of judicial opinion between two leading High Courts of our country, namely the Allahabad High Court and Madhya Pradesh High Court taking contrary views which have to be resolved by us in the present writ petitions. The short point involved in these petitions turns upon the interpretation of the word "Entertainment" as used in Section 2 (3) of the Uttar Pradesh Entertainment and Betting Tax Act 1937 (hereinafter to be referred to as the Act).

2. The facts of these cases lie within a very narrow compass and may be stated thus :-

The first petitioner is a partnership firm which had launched an entertaining and ingenious enterprise for the running of a video parlour at 3. Chauhan Market, Delhi Gate, Agra. The modus operandi of the petitioner was as follows. A machine with a video screen is installed in the parlour of the petitioner. The petitioner permits persons to enter the premises without any charge to view a show on the video which consisted mainly of sports games etc, played on the screen of the video. According to the petitioner he did not charge any admission fee but the Electronic Machines imported from Japan having educational value for persons playing the games were meant to provide educational entertainment by showing sea warfare, battle field, space warfare sports and many other things which were likely to provide both education and entertainment to the viewers, particularly to young children. The mechanism for playing the machine was so designed that a coin of 50 naya paise was to be inserted into a strong box built within the machine, the keys of which were with the manufacturer. After the show was over a representative of the manufacturing company would come, open the box, collect the money and pay the share of the hirerpetitioner out of the collected sale proceeds. It was further alleged that no admission or gate entry fee was charged for entering the House or Parlour to watch or play the game or for entering into the adjacent snack shops. The shows were operated by an operator from the audience and 50 paise coin was inserted into the aforesaid box before the show could start. The charge of inserting the coin was realised only from those who wanted to operate the video machine at the rate of 50 paise for a show lasting up to 30 seconds.

3. The petitioners thus contended that the manner in which the game was shown to the viewers and operated by the person playing the games was not an entertainment within the meaning of Section 2 (3) of the Act. To buttress this argument the petitioners cited the example of several States where identical shows were not exigible to entertainment tax. It is manifest that the manner and the mechanism by which the operation of the video was done would be exigible to tax could not be determined merely because some other States did not choose to charge any entertainment tax for the video shows.

4. The crux of the matter is as to whether or not the show, the details of which have been described above falls within the four corners of the expression "Entertainment". Sub-section (3) of Section 2 of the Act may be extracted thus :-

" entertainment includes any exhibitional, performance, amusement, game or sport to which persons are admitted for payment."

5. It is true that a part of the video show was of some educational value but that by itself would be no answer to the application of sub-section (3). The definition as extracted above is extremely wide so as to take within its fold and includes the kind of show which was displayed by the petitioners in this case.

6. Before explaining the section we would like to ascertain the correct meaning and import of the word entertainment (which is neither a scientific nor a technical term) as used in the popular sense or as understood in common parlance. This was held by this Court in the case of Porritts & Spencer (Asia) Ltd, v. State of Ha