JUDGMENT :

S. RAVINDRA BHAT, J.

1. This appeal by State of Gujarat, complains of the grievance with respect to a part of the impugned judgment¹[dated 26.06.2009 delivered by the Gujarat High Court in Special Civil Application No.5391 of 2004].

2. This Court had occasion to deal with the substantial grievance of the present writ petitioner(s)/respondents, in a judgment reported in Devi Multiplex & another v State of Gujarat and Others, (2015) 9 SCC 132. The issue which concerns this Court in the present proceedings, with respect to the method of calculation or the method of determining the exemption limits under the scheme, extended by the State, to multiplexes, who had put up capital infrastructure. These incentives were by way of tax exemptions for a specified period. On the previous occasion, this court had adjudicated upon the grievance of the multiplex owners, regarding denial of extension of the scheme. This court held that the denial of extension (two years, which was sought by the multiplex owners) was in the circumstances, unjustified and had invoked the doctrine of promissory estoppel.

3. For the sake of convenience, the court can do know better than extract para 2 of the judgment in Devi Multiplex(supra) which broadly outlines the incentive scheme, contained in the exemption notification issued by the State on 20.12.1995. The relevant part of the judgment is extracted below:

“2. Since Civil Appeal No. 6478 of 2009 was taken as the lead matter, facts relating thereto are dealt with in detail hereafter. On 20-12-1995 the Government of Gujarat announced a policy named New Package Scheme of Incentives for Tourism Projects, 1995-2000 (hereafter referred to as “the Scheme”) with a view to make available all fiscal and non-fiscal incentives, reliefs and concessions enjoyed by industries to “tourism” which was accorded the status of an industry, in order to give a boost to tourism sector by attracting higher investment in the areas with tourism potential and to generate employment opportunities. Under Clause 2, the Scheme came into operation on 1-8-1995 and was to remain in force for a period of five years up to 31-7-2000. Under Clause 3, to be eligible, a new tourism unit ought to be registered after 1-8-1995. Clause 4.7 dealt with effective steps which such unit was expected to undertake. Under Clause 5, after taking initial effective steps a tourism unit could apply to the Director of Tourism for registration. All projects had to conform to the specifications and requirements spelt out in Appendix B which appendix dealt with various categories of tourism units and Item 22 thereof pertained to “Entertainment Complexes” including multi-cinema theatre complexes or multiplexes. Clause 7 categorised tourism units in four categories, namely, Prestigious Tourism Units, Large-scale Tourism Units, Small-scale Tourism Units and Tiny Tourism Units with minimum fixed capital investment of Rs 10 crores, 90 lakhs, 10 lakhs and less than 10 lakhs, respectively. Clause 8 dealt with incentives and stated that a tax holiday of 5-10 years would be available in respect of exemptions from (i) sales tax (ii) turnover tax (iii) electricity duty (iv) luxury tax, and (v) entertainment tax, up to 100% of capital investment. In Clause 8.1 it was stated that the quantum of incentives would not exceed 100% of eligible capital investment and it further stated the period of eligibility in respect of prestigious tourism units, large-scale tourism units, small-scale tourism units and tiny tourism units to be 10 years, 8 years, 6 years and 5 years, respectively. Clause 9 dealt with composition of sanctioning authority whereunder State Level Committee was competent to issue eligibility certificate in respect of prestigious and large units while District Level Committee was to issue eligibility certificate for all small-scale and tiny tourism units. The proc