( 1 ) IN all these petitions, 87 in number, common questions of facts and law arise for determination of the Court with the only difference in type and nature of vehicles/machines. The question to be considered is as to whether such vehicle/machine is "motor vehicle" or "vehicle" within the meaning of section 2 (28) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 and, therefore, liable to be taxed under the provisions of the Bombay Motor Vehicles Tax act, 1958 or whether it is simply machine and/or equipment not covered under the Act of 1958. Therefore, this Court proposes to dispose of all these petitions by this common judgment after referring to the facts mentioned in Special Civil Application no. 15815 of 2003, which is treated as the main petition.

( 2 ) BY filing Special Civil Application no. 15815 of 2003 under Article 226 of the constitution, the petitioner,. e. M/s. Larsen and Toubro Limited, has prayed to issue an appropriate writ or order to quash order dated September 19, 2003 rendered by the commissioner of Transport, Gujarat State, in Tax Appeal No. 77 of 2003, holding that crawler-crane tata-320 falls within the definition of "motor vehicle" as defined under section 2 (28) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 ("the M. V. Act" for short), and as such, it is registrable under the M. V. Act and also taxable under the Bombay Motor Vehicles tax Act, 1958 ("the Tax Act" for short ). The petitioner has further prayed to direct the respondent No. 1,. e. the Inspector of Motor vehicles, Check-Post, Amirgadh, to forthwith refund a sum of Rs. 2,15,960/- which, according to the petitioner, came to be forcibly recovered from it on June 28, 2003 as condition precedent for allowing its equipment in question bearing sr. No. T-3642 to travel from Gujarat State to rajasthan, together with interest thereon at the bank rate and costs of the proceedings all throughout.

( 3 ) THE petitioner is a public limited company incorporated under the provisions of the Companies Act, 1956. The construction Division of this company undertakes the execution of "turn-key projects" all over India and for execution of these projects, it holds various kinds of equipments. According to the petitioner, it has a number of construction units located at various places, and to carry out construction projects at different places all over the country, machines/equipments owned by the petitioner are transferred from one construction unit to another depending upon the work-load involved in the project at hand. It is the case of the petitioner that for execution of projects at Panipat in haryana, the petitioner was required to transport in truck-trailer crawler mounted cranes called TATA-320 Crane bearing equipment Sr. No. T-3642 from near bharuch town, which was likely to be detained and seized by the Inspector of motor Vehicles, R. T. O. Check-Post, amirgadh, on the ground that the said crane was a motor vehicle within the meaning of section 2 (28) of the M. V. Act and was liable to be taxed under the Tax Act. This apprehension was also entertained by the petitioner with reference to another equipment namely crawler mounted crane called TATA-320 bearing equipment Sr. No. T-3801 manufactured by TELCO in India. Therefore, the petitioner invoked jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the constitution by filing Special Civil application Nos. 8117 of 2003 and 8118 of 2003 seeking appropriate writ or order to hold that the petitioner s crawler crane tata-320 was neither a motor vehicle nor vehicle under Section 2 (28) of the M. V. Act and was, therefore, not required to be registered before the R. T. O. Authority in the state of Gujarat. Those two petitions came up for hearing before the learned Single judge of this Court on June 19, 2003 and after hearing the learned counsels for the parties, the Court disposed of the two petitions vide order dated June 19, 2003 by giving following directions:

"7. In view of the aforesaid, I find that the following direc