ANANTANARAYANAN, C.J. :- The Madras Urban Land Tax Act 12 of 1966, received the assent of the President on the 9th of September, 1966; by virtue of Sec. 1, sub-section (2) (a) (i), most of the provisions of this Act, with three stated exceptions, are deemed to have come into force in the City of Madras, on the first of July, 1963. In the proceedings before us, the vires of this measure has been challenged, upon grounds of the absence of legislative competence and attack under the combined effect of Articles 14 and 19 (1) of the Constitution of India; admittedly, grounds of great significance and interest. In Buckingham and Carnatic Co.. Ltd. v. State of Madras, (1966) 2 Mad LJ 172 the Division Bench of Veeraswami and Natesan, JJ., dealt with a predecessor enactment, namely, Madras Urban Land Tax Act XXXIV of 1963, and while upholding the measure in terms of legislative competence, struck down the charging section (Section 3) as violative of Article 14, and in consequence, held that the entire Act was void and unenforceable. Upon the present measure, arguments have been submitted before us, at considerable length, and covering a wide range of precedents and authorities. 2-3. I have had the advantage of perusing the judgment of my learned brother (Veeraswami, J.) in which every aspect of the matter in controversy has been dealt with, and analysed, exhaustively, and at length; also. I am in entire agreement with his conclusions. For these reasons, I have debated within myself whether I should deliver any separate judgment. But I have been impelled to do so, on one important ground. The arguments before us do not merely cover the present enactment; they have a wider significance, as attaching to the true interpretation of Entry 49 of List II of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, and have considerable potentialities for the future. Again, both the arguments on legislative competence, and the assault on the measure upon the combined effect of Article 14 and Article 19, now that the Emergency has been lifted, admit of several perspectives of approach. For these reasons. I am expressing my own views, as analytically as possible, and within a more restricted compass. The judgment of my learned brother (Veeraswami, J.) enables me to dispense with the discussion of several aspects and facts, that have received elaborate treatment at his hands; further, it enables me to commence in medias res without the necessity to analyse the particulars of the writ petitions, or the structure in detail, of the Act itself.

4. For the purpose of this judgment, I am taking the main argument of Mr. V. K. T. Chari on legislative competence, and combining it with a part of the arguments of Mr. Vedantachari on the legislative history of Entry 49 of List II of the Seventh Schedule. In my view, this total process of reasoning represents the most formidable attack on the measure, presented during arguments. I am segregating, for brief separate treatment, the two other extreme positions pressed by Mr. Vedantachari : (1) that under Entry 49 of List II, even the State Legislature is incompetent to legislate, except for purposes of finances for the Local Bodies, or what has been termed 'rates legislation' and (2) that, on proper analysis, the enactment before us really falls under 'Land Revenue'.which is Entry 45 of List II, in which case, the proportion of the produce that the State can take away, by any such taxing measure, has a limit that is historically determined, and cannot be exceeded.

5. After dealing with this broad area of the arguments, which is the vital part. I shall devote scrutiny and analysis to the combined effect of Articles 14 and 19 of the Constitution on the measure itself, to the extent to which it may be termed 'confiscatory' and, in particular, upon Section 6 of the measure. I am in entire agreement with Veeraswami J., that Section 6, at least, does not survive any such analysis, and amounts to an excessive delegation, of utte