No tax shall be levied or collected except by authority of law.

"No tax shall be levied or collected except by authority of law."

The duty that has been levied-we assume that the duty that has been imposed is also a tax within the meaning of Art. 265 of the Constitution and no point was taken in this regard before us, was certainly without the authority of law. There is, therefore, no jurisidiction either to impose the tax or collect the same. This being so, the provisions of the Constitution must prevail notwithstanding the difflculties that may be experienced by the authorities who function under the Act in directing refund.

2.Our attention was drawn to the decision of the Supreme Court reported inMadras Rubber Factoryv.Union of India, where an order of the Central Government passed in further proceedings from an order under S. 27 of the Customs Act was upheld by the Supreme Court in an appeal taken from that order by special leave granted by the Supreme Court. In that appeal, the Supreme Court could not have exercised its jurisidiction under Art. 32 of the Constitution but could only have decided the question whether the authority functioning under the Act had acted in accordance with law. This decision is distinguishable. No decision of the Supreme Court where it had refused to exercise jurisdiction under Art. 226 of the Constitution in an application for refund of tax collected without the authority of law, had been brought to our notice. In the light of the above, we dismiss the appeal. We have chosen to write a speaking order in dismissing the appeal because the matter was argued at length before us and we assume that it is not going to end here.