The main legal point established in the judgment is that suits against public officers must comply with the notice requirement under Section 80 of the Code of Civil Procedure, and failure to do so may result in the rejection of the plaints.

Though the High Court is vested with jurisdiction to call for the records of a case decided by any subordinate Court suo motu, it is not often that this power is exercised since, generally, it is left to the parties to resort to the appellate court or the revisional court on their initiative. But this Court has in these proceedings, taken up in revision suo motu, the orders of the Court below passed on interim applications moved before that court when this Court was moved by C.M.P. No. 13513 of 1972 to transfer four cases pending in the Court of Munsiff, Kozhikode-I to the file of this Court. This motion was made by the Regional Transport Officer, Kozhikode under certain peculiar circumstances and I think it is profitable to state those circumstances here to understand the background of the suits in which the interim applications were filed.

2. The Kerala Motor Vehicles (Taxation of Passengers and Goods) Act 25 of 1963 (hereinafter called as "the Act") came into force on 01-07-1963. That Act levied a tax on all passengers, luggage and goods carried by stage carriages and goods transported by public carriages. Eversince the passing of this enactment, it has been subjected to repeated attacks in this Court on the ground of constitutional invalidity. A good number of operators approached this Court by means of petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution of India and obtained stay of collection of tax with the result in the case of such operators the tax under the Act is due for several years and in the case of some from the commencement of the Act itself. Ultimately the matter was considered by this Court in Thomman v. Regional Transport Officer, Ernakulam. AIR 1969 Ker 130. It was held by this Court that the incidence of tax under the enactment was not on the operators but on the passengers and goods and that was well within the competence of the State Legislature. The contention that the statute infringed Aricles 14 and 19 of the Constitution of India was rejected by this Court. But the Court directed that provision must be made for the collection of the tax from the passenger as tax specifying the quantum calculated and computed on the basis of the provisions in the Act. The Government was directed that this should be done as expeditiously as possible.

Thereafter Government issued a notification dated 29-04-1968 in a draft form purporting to give directions to the State Transport Authority. That draft notification purported to clarify that the fare rate fixed from 01-07-1963 was inclusive of tax and that such tax is collected from the passengers. That notification was attacked in this Court. But this Court dismissed the petitions challenging the notification on the assurance given by the Government that enforcement of tax will not be made pursuant to it. Act 34 of 1971 which amended the parent Act purported to remedy the situation. That again was attacked before this Court by a good number of operators and this Court, in the decision in Mayilvahanam Motor Service v. State of Kerala, 1972 Ker LT 564 : (1973 Tax LR 2199) dismissed the petitions. It is said that there are some appeals pending in the Supreme Court against these dismissals. It is also said that the Supreme Court was moved by some of the operators for stay. It also appears that when the authorities moved to collect the tax from the operators after all these proceedings, that naturally met with opposition from the operators, who by this time, had heavy arrears to pay. They adopted an agitational approach to the problem. That forced the Government to consider the question of giving some relief in the matter of payment. Section 4 of the Act provides for composition of the tax payable by an operator and the conditions under which such composition is to be allowed are specified in the schedule to the Act. Clause 3 of the schedule specifies the method of composition and clause 4 which was added to the Original Schedule by notification dated 16th April, 1968 pro