ICAR is an instrumentality of the State and exempt from state tax under Article 285 of the Constitution of India.

Prakash Tatia, J.-Since these writ petitions are having common facts and grounds, therefore, the facts of S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 733/2004 will be sufficient for the purpose of deciding controversy between the parties, therefore, both these writ petitions are being decided by this common Judgment .

2. Heard learned Counsel for the parties.

3. The brief facts of the case are that according to the petitioner, the properties belonging to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (for short ICAR) and the Central Arid Zone Research Institute (for short CAZRI), are the properties of the Union of India and, therefore, these properties are exempt from payment of tax in terms of Article 285 of the Constitution of India and, therefore, any authority under the State is not competent to levy any State tax on the properties held by the Union of India.

4. According to the petitioner, despite above legal position, the Assistant Director, Land and Building Tax initiated proceedings to levy land and building tax on the properties of the Union of India held by the CAZRI which is a unit of ICAR and which is a department working under the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. According to the learned Counsel for the petitioner, Honble the Supreme Court has an occasion to consider the status of ICAR in the case of P.K. Ramachandra Iyer & Ors. vs. Union of India & Ors., reported in AIR 1984 SC 541. Honble the Supreme Court in the said case took note of the facts and held that the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) even though it is a Society registered under the Societies Registration Act, still in view of the fact that it was wholly financed by the Government of India, its budget was voted upon as part of the expenses incurred in the Ministry of Agriculture and it was declared as an attached office of the Government of India and control of the Government of India permeates through all its activity and it is the body to which the Government of India transferred Research Institutes set up by it and in order to make it financially viable, a cess was levied, meaning thereby that the taxation power of the State was invoked and the proceeds of the tax were to be handed over to the ICAR for its use. This by itself is sufficient to make it an instrumentality of the State. Therefore, according to the learned Counsel for the petitioner, the action of the respondents of levying tax on the properties of the petitioner is in violation to Article 285 of the Constitution of India.Therefore, by an appropriate writ, order or direction, it may be declared that the properties held by the petitioners are exempt from the payment of land and building tax in view of Article 285 of the Constitution of India read with Section 6 of the Rajasthan Land and Building Tax Act, 1964 (for short the Act of 1964). The petitioner also sought relief of quashing of the of assessment order dated 20.10.2003 (Annexure 5) and demand notice dated 22.02.2003 (Annexure 6) in S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 733/2004 and assessment order dated 20.10.2003 (Annexure 12) and demand notice dated 20.10.2003 (Annexure 13) in S.B. Civil Writ Petition No.7053/2003.

5. Reply has been filed by the respondents. According to the respondents, the ICAR is a Society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1980 and it is a autonomous body and is owned and administered by its own rules and regulation and, therefore, the properties in question are not the properties of the Union of India. The respondents relied upon the Judgment of the Honble Supreme Court delivered in the case of Chandra Mohan Khanna vs. NCERT, reported in AIR 1992 SC 76, wherein it has been held that:-

“Article 12 should not be stretched so as to bring in every autonomous body which has come nexus with the Government within sweep of expression “State”. A wide enlargement of the meaning must be tempered by a wise limitation. It must not be lost sight of that in the modern concept of welfare State, indep