Dama Seshadri Naidu, J.

Introduction:

1. People buy cars, not much of a concern. Some of them buy cars in other states, still not much of a concern. But they register the vehicles in those states only to be used in this State. That is the concern, at least for the State. So the State mistrusts this practice and brings in legislation to curb it. A nonagenarian cries foul. Pro bono publico, he wants to champion the cause of this affluent assortment of people. They suffer no disability to come to the court on their own, though. Can this crusading spirit be countenanced?

Facts:

2. We will go into the details. Some people, presumably affluent, buy cars at a place like Pondicherry, a Union Territory; C.R. they also register the vehicles there, showing some residential address - genuine or otherwise - for an ostensible reason: less motor vehicle tax. But they bring the vehicles to Kerala to be used. The Government of Kerala has a legislative recourse to curb that practice.

3. We are not going into the merits of that practice or its justifiability. Though the cars are purchased by affluent people, by spending lakhs or even crores, they have not come before this court to ventilate their grievance. Instead, petitioner A. K. Balakrishnan Nair, aged 89 years, has. He claims to have been driven by “enthusiasm to serve afflicted people”. He asserts that those who had purchased and registered cars outside Kerala, their bona fides notwithstanding, have been hounded and harassed by the authorities.

Petitioner’s Justification and Court’s Observation:

4. Balakrishnan Nair gathered the information from the press that “a cinema actor and member of Parliament who bought a luxury car at Pondicherry has been charged by the Crime Branch for evasion of tax. There are as many as 1500 similar cases in which an equal number of people will be facing the music.” According to him, the crises faced by these 1500 families is “a general issue” and, in fact, “concerns the welfare of a large number of people in the country.”

5. Before we proceed further, we may marvel at Nair’s arithmetic assertion: the putative problem of 1500 families concerns the welfare of 120,00,00,000 people. And it is the general issue affecting all.

6. The state’s action, alleges Nair, is causing “grave injustice of incomparable severity to a large number of distinguished individuals.” He declares “the IPC does not contain any offence called evasion of tax.” Making mincemeat of a metaphor, Nair takes to rhetoric:

He likens the situation to a petrol pump owner’s finding fault with a nearby resident not buying fuel from his outlet and harassing him on that count. At best, it is a strained metaphor misapplied, trivializing the federal taxation principles. Nothing more.

7. So is Nair’s pleading that buying things in Pondicherry is not a crime. Again adopting an analogy, he asserts there is no ban on a Keralite’s buying a house at Delhi. What the purchaser does is, find a suitable house, pay the price, and also remit the tax prevailing in Delhi. The question of “Kerala making a gain out of the transaction,” Nair concludes, does not arise at all.

8. We will address this out-of-place analogy, too. If a Keralite buys a house in Delhi, pays the tax in Delhi, and lives in that house in Delhi, nobody perceives a problem-even legally. But if he buys the house and pays tax in Delhi, yet tries to move it over to Kerala to live in it, it is, first, an impossibility and, second, borders on imbecility. If it were possible, it would be plain illegality.

9. Besides, if an item of commerce falls within the State List, the State will enjoy legislative legitimacy to regulate or restrict transactions affecting that item of property. Nair proclaims that “the whole of India is one country with a uniform civil code.” This proclamation has two limbs: the first is a fact and the second is a desirable dream. India is one, no doubt; but it is federal, its components sharing with it powers-political and fiscal.

10. To sum