The levy and realization of octroi can be challenged in a Civil Court if the levy itself is unconstitutional and illegal.

1. - All the above mentioned revisions are disposed of by one single order as these revisions arise out of a common order passed by District Judge, Kota, dated September 8, 1987.

2. Brief facts of the case are that M/s. J.K. Synthetics Ltd., Kota (here-in-after referred to as 'the Company') filed tour suits for an injunction restraining the Municipal Council, Kota not to realise any octroi on the raw material consumed in their factory for expanded capacity for a period from April 1, 1986 to March, 31, 1988. Applications for temporary injunction were also filed alongwith the suits. Learned Munsif and Judicial Magistrate, Kota (North) by his order dated August 22, 1987. dismissed all the four applications for temporary injunction tiled alongwith the suits. Learned Munsif while passing the above order gave the following direction in the last part of his order:

"izkFkhZ dEiuh }kjk izLrqr vLFkkbZ fu"ks/kkKk ds pkjksa izkFkZuk&i= fo:) vkizkFkhZx.k vLohdkj fd;s tkrs gSaA vizkFkhZ dks ;g Hkh funsZ'k fn;s tkrs gSa fd os 20&2&87 ds vkns'k dh ikyuk esa ;fn izkFkhZ dEiuh foLrkj ls iwoZ dh {kerk ds dPps eky gsrq pqaxh vnk dj nsrk gS rks mls dsoy foLrkj dh xbZ {kerk ds fy, vk;kfrr eky ij pqaxh eqfDr dk ykHk nsosA"

3. The Company filed four appeals, which came up for consideration before the District Judge, Kota. Learned District Judge observed that the above order passed by Munsif can be divided in two parts Learned District Judge then observed that in the first part of the above order Munsif had dismissed the applications for temporary injunction while in the second part he had granted the entire relief to the company for which applications for temporary injunction were filed. According to the District Judge this had created an unusual situation. Learned District Judge then considered the case set up by both the parties and held that the argument of learned counsel for Municipal Council was not correct that no law can be given retrospective effect. It was held that the original order granting exemption was dated May 18, 1982 and the order dated February 20, 1987 was merely an order of compliance of the original order dated May 18, 1982 According to the District Judge the second reason for taking the aforesaid view was that the order dated February 20, 1987 itself mentioned that it was made effective from April 1, 1986. Whatever octroi so far been paid by the Company was on such raw material on which the octroi was already payable, In these circumstances there was no question of giving any retrospective operation to the Notification dated February 20, 1987. Learned District Judge then observed that the last reason for taking the above view was that learned counsel for the Company had not raised any argument for the refund of any amount of octroi already paid by the Company. Thus, according to the learned District Judge, there was no controversy at this stage regarding the payment of any additional octroi but the only question was to grant exemption on the expanded capacity of raw material.

4. Learned District Judge also repelled the contention at learned counsel for Municipal Council that the Civil Court had no jurisdiction to try the suit. Reliance in this regard was placed by the learned District Judge on (1) Singhai Tantilal v. City of Jabalpur Corporation, AIR 1960 M.P. 223 . Learned District Judge then decided the question of balance of convenience and irreparable loss also in favour of the Company Learned District Judge, in these circumstances, allowed all the four appeals filed by the Company and set aside the first part of the order of the Munsif and maintained the second part. Learned District Judge ultimately gave a direction that the Municipal Council, Kota shall grant exemption of octroi to the Company on the expanded capacity of raw material in compliance with the order dated February 20, 1987. It was also directed that the appellant Company would furnish the entire details regarding the import of raw material from April