Judgment

CHINNAPPA REDDY, J.:- It is indeed a great pity and we wish we did not have to say it but we are afraid we will be signally failing in our duty if we do not do so some courts, of late, appear to have developed an unwarranted tendency to grant interim orders with a great potential for public. mischief for the mere asking. We feel greatly disturbed. We find it more distressing that such interim orders, often ex parte and non speaking are made even by the High Courts while entertaining writ petitions under Art. 226 of the Constitution, and in the Calcutta High Court, on oral application too. Recently in Samarias Trading Co. Pvt. Ltd v. S. Samuel (Civil Appeal No. 4416 of 1984) (reported in AIR 1985 SC61), we had occasion to condemn and prohibit this practice of entertaining oral applications under Art 226 and passing interim orders thereon. In several other cases, Siliguri Municipality v. Amalendu Das (1984) 2 SCC 436, Titaghur Paper Mills Co. Ltd. v. State of Orissa (1983) 2 SCC 433, Union of India v. Oswal Woollen Mills Ltd (1984) 2 SCC 646. Union of India v. Jain Shudh Vanaspati Ltd. C. A. No, 11450 of 1983, this court was forced to point out how wrong it was to make interim orders so soon as an application was but presented when a second thought (or a seconds thought) would expose the impairment of the public interest and often enough the existence of a suitable alternative remedy. Despite the fact that we have set our face. against interfering with interim orders passed by the High Courts and made it practically a rigid rule hot to so interfere we were constrained to interfere in those cases.

2. In Siliguri Municipality v. Amalendu Das. (supra) A. P. Sen and M. P. Thakkar, JJ. had to deal with an interlocutory order passed by the Calcutta High Court restraining the Siliguri Municipality from recovering a graduated consolidated rate on the annual value of buildings in terms of the amended provisions of the Bengal Municipal Act. We reiterate the following observations made therein:

"We are constrained to make the observations which follow as we do feel dismayed at the tendency on the part of some of the High Courts to grant interlocutory orders for the mere asking. Normally, the High Court should not, as a rule, in proceedings under Art. 226 of the constitution grant any stay of recovery of tax save under very exceptional circumstance. The grant of stay in such matters, should be an exception and not a rule.

It. is needless to stress that a levy or impost does not become bad as soon as a writ petition is instituted in order to assail the validity of the levy. So also there is no warrant for presuming the levy to be bad at the very threshold of the proceedings. The only consideration at that juncture is to ensure that no prejudice is occasioned to the rate payers in case they ultimately succeed at the conclusion of the proceedings. This object can be attained by requiring the body or authority levying the impost to give an undertaking to refund or adjust against future dues, the levy of tax or rate or a part thereof, as the case may be in the event of the entire levy or a part thereof being ultimately held to be invalid by the court without obliging the tax- payers by the. court to institute a civil suit in order to claim the amount already recovered from them. On the other hand, the Court cannot be unmindful of the need to protect the authority levying the tax, for, at that stage the Court has to proceed on the hypothesis that the challenge may or may not succeed. The Court has to show awareness of the fact that in a case like the present a municipality cannot function or meet its financial obligations if its source of revenue is blocked by an interim order restraining the municipality from recovering the taxes as per the impugned provision. And that the municipality has to maintain essential civic services like water supply, street lighting and public streets etc, apart from running public institutions like school dispen