( 1 ) THE legislative competency of the Andhra Pradesh Legislature in passing the Andhra Pradesh (Mineral Rights) Tax Act, 1975 (hereinafter called the State Act) is in question in this batch of writ petitions. The point was raised earlier unsuccessfully before this Court on two occasions once in Kesoram Cements v. Government of Andhra Pradesh W. P. Rio. 1451 decided by Madhava Reddy, A. C. J. (as he then was) and T. L. N. Reddy, J. and again in M. K. Rama Murthy v. Government of Andhra Pradesh, (1985) 1 APLJ 84 decided by Jeevan Reddy and Sardar Ali Khan, JJ. The controversy has now been raised again before us but this time, the petitioners claim to be amply supported in their contentions by the recent decision of the Supreme Court in India Cement Ltd. v. State of Tamil Nadu AIR 1990 SC 85 wherein royalty has been held to be a tax. The question revolves round the interpretation of Entry 54 of List I in the 7th Schedule of the Constitution of India on the one hand and Entries 23, 50 of List II on the other and depends upon the point urged for the petitioners that the entire field of legislation in respect of regulation and development of mines and minerals including the right to

Click Here to Read the rest of this document