The main legal point established in the judgment is that the Kerala Local Authorities Entertainments Tax Act, 1961 imposes the tax squarely on the proprietor, and compliance with the provisions of the Act is not a condition precedent to the collection of the tax from the proprietor.

1. The question in these cases is whether the issue by the local authority of a stamp of the kind described in clause (a) of sub-section (1) of S.5 of the Kerala Local Authorities Entertainments Tax Act, 1961, namely, a stamp indicating the proper tax payable in respect of the ticket issued for admission to an entertainment, is a condition precedent to the recovery of the tax by the local authority from the proprietor of an entertainment. In Ismail v. Commissioner 1963 KLT. 1080 a full bench of three judges of this Court held (on the like provisions of the Travancore-Cochin Local Authorities Entertainments Tax Act, 1951) that it was except in a case covered by S.4 of the Act it is because that decision is doubted that these cases are before us and, although the complaint there was the well-founded complaint that the local authority was collecting in advance the tax payable in respect of tickets to be issued to persons attending the entertainments without issuing stamps of the kind described, in other words, was collecting the price of the stamps without issuing them, the relief granted in the following terms was much wider:

"x x x we order that mandamus shall issue to the respondent (namely, the local authority) for the issue of labels indicating the proper entertainments tax payable for each ticket of admission for stamping the same, in cases not covered by S.4 of the Act, as a condition precedent to the levy and collection of entertainments tax."

The full bench also held, what is no longer controverted, that the tax is to be levied, at the percentage prescribed under S.3 of the Act, on the total amount paid for admission to an entertainment, what we might call the gross price of admission, not on the amount left after deducting from the gross price a sum equivalent to the tax payable in respect of the admission, what we might call the net price of admission. The petitioners in these cases are two proprietors of cinema theatres within the Municipality of Kottayam. The Municipality had been collecting tax from them on the basis of daily returns of the tickets for admission sold by them without issuing stamps of the kind described in clause (a) of sub-section (1) of S.5 of the Act. It had also been levying tax at the prescribed percentage on the net and not on the gross price of admission. As a result of the directions issued to it by the State Government by means of Ext. P1 dated 3151965 on the basis of the full bench decision referred to above, the Municipality issued notice (Ext. P2 dated 23 21966) to the proprietors to the effect that tax would be collected at the prescribed percentage on the gross price of admission, instead of on the net price, with effect from 161965. It followed this up (after some intermediate correspondence which is not material) with the notice, Ext. P5 dated 10 81966, demanding payment of all arrears up to date within two days, failing which it threatened legal action for the recovery. Soon thereafter, the two proprietors came with the writ petitions, O. P. Nos. 932 and 936 of 1966, out of which these appeals arise. They prayed that the notices Exts. P2 and P5 be quashed, that the Municipality be restrained from collecting the tax from them except after following the procedure enjoined by clause (a) of sub-section (1) of S.5 of the Act, and that the Municipality be directed to refund the tax which they alleged had been illegally collected from them during the three years preceding the filing of the petitions. The learned single judge who heard the petitions quashed Exts. P2 and P5 following, as he was bound to, the decision in Ismail v. Commissioner 1963 KLT.1080. He denied the other reliefs claimed by the petitioners, namely, the second and the third reliefs, the second on the ground that it was unnecessary in view of the full bench decision, and the third, namely, the refund of the tax collected, on the ground that it was inexpedient to decide the matter in writ proceedings. Both sides h