The court clarified that the motive in enacting a law is irrelevant for determining whether the exercise of power is colorable, and that the legislature can make laws within its legislative competence, irrespective of its motives. The court also emphasized that the recovery of refunded amounts and the validating provision were subsidiary and incidental to the exercise of the powers conferred by the Constitution.

1. The petitioners in these writ applications, challenge the constitutional validity of the Luxury Tax on Tobacco (Validation) Act, 1964, (Act IX of 1964). Actually, this is a later development in almost all of these writ applications. At the time they were filed, Act IX of 1964 referred to above was not in the statute book. The petitions originally contained only the prayer for a direction to refund licence fees collected from the petitioners for granting the various classes of licences as envisaged by the two enactments; the Travancore Tobacco Act (I of 1087) and the Cochin Tobacco Act (VII of 1084) and the Rules framed thereunder. This collection itself was once challenged in certain writ applications moved before this Court. The point then taken was that by virtue of S.13(2) of the Finance Act, 1950 (Act XXV of 1950), and the extension of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 to the Travancore-Cochin State from 1950, the two enactments, the Travancore Tobacco Act (I of 1087) and the Cochin Tobacco Act (VII of 1084) stood repealed as those enactments represented law which is "corresponding law' within the meaning of that term in S.2 of the Finance Act, 1950. A Full Bench of this Court declined to accept this contention and came to the conclusion that the tax imposed by the Travancore Tobacco Act (I of 1087) and the Cochin Tobacco Act (VII of 1084) was in the nature of a luxury tax falling within item 62 of List II of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution and held that the enactments did not contain'corresponding law' to that in the Central Excises and Salt Act. The writ petitions consequently were dismissed. In appeal to the Supreme Court the decision of this Court was reversed on the ground that the provisions in the Travancore Tobacco Act (I of 1087) and the Cochin Tobacco Act (VII of 1084) are substantially similar to that contained in the Central Excises and Salt Act; 1944 & therefore was 'corresponding law' and hence stood repealed by virtue of S.13(2) of the Finance Act, 1950. It was after this decision of the Supreme Court that the present series of petitions were moved. The prayer mainly, as I stated was for an order for refund of the tax collected from the various licensees in relation to the different licenses taken by them. The petitions were pending for a fairly long time as the repeated requests of the State Government for adjournments, on the ground that the Government was considering the whole question, were granted. Towards the end of last year, when the cases came up again for hearing the petitioners were confronted with an Ordinance, Ordinance I of 1963, which was replaced by Act IX of 1964. So confronted, the petitions were amended by including prayers in the petitions for quashing the Ordinance as well as Act IX of 1964.

2. In two of these petitions, pursuant to the decision of the Supreme Court and before the promulgation of Ordinance I of 1963, certain amounts were refunded to the petitioners therein and there is an additional prayer in those petitions that there should be a direction to the State that no attempts should be made to collect again the amounts so refunded.

3. The main attack on Act IX of 1964 can be grouped under three heads. The first, which may be referred to as lack of legislative competence which in turn was presented in two distinct and separate basis, one based on the larger ground that the tax imposed is of a nature which is not within the legislative competence of the State to impose and the other on the basis that the State Legislature (The Kerala Legislature) has no power in any event to promulgate the Act so as to be operative for the period from the 17th day of August, 1950 to the 31st day of November 1957, the major part of which is a period falling before the formation of the Kerala Legislature on 1-11-1956. Secondly it was urged that the promulgation of Act IX of 1964 is a colourable exercise of the State Legislature's powers, and thirdly, that the Act is viol