JUDGMENT

Kirty, J. - I agree with my learned brother that the appeal must be allowed and the suit dismissed as being barred by Section 16 of the U. P. Motor Vehicles Taxation Act.

2. The assessment of tax, demand for payment of tax assessed and payment of the same, even if made under protest, became final under Section 15 of the Act and could not be questioned by means of a suit because of the express bar contained in Section 16. There is nothing to show that the plaintiff had submitted the forms making the declarations therein contained under protest or without prejudice to its rights, if any, to raise an action in a civil court. The circular order dated 13-12-1952 may have directed or even demanded a particular course of action to be adopted by the plaintiff and others similarly placed and may have also contained a threat of penal action. But the threat, assuming that such threat was there, was neither so over powering nor so snapping as to make the plaintiff yield to the demand, as it were, at pistol point. It was not pleaded, much less proved, that the authorities appointed under the Motor Vehicles Act had acted malafide or maliciously or with any oblique motive to cause illegal or wrongful gain to the State of U. P. They appear, at the worst, to have laboured under a misapprehension both in regard to the factual and legal position. It may as well be that the plaintiff, which was fully conversant with the facts, equally laboured under a misapprehension in regard to the correct legal position. It is not that the plaintiff was not given any breathing time and was denied time, opportunity and its right to seek legal advice. For ought we know, it may have taken legal advice and the same being in conformity with the circular order, it acted in the manner directed by the order. It may as we have acted by way of expediency. In the circumstances, the grounds upon which the learned counsel for the plaintiff-respondent sought to avoid the express bar contained in Section 16 cannot be held to be available to the plaintiff.

3. The plaintiff's claim or the decree passed in its favour cannot also be saved or supported by resorting to the equitable doctrine of unjust enrichment. Firstly, this doctrine cannot override express statutory provisions such as are to be found in Sections 15 and 16 of U. P. Act No. V of 1935; and secondly, except probably by way of ex gratin payment, when under a fiscal statute tax has been assessed upon a bonafide construction of some provision of the statute or upon a bona fide view of the law applicable to material facts by (he Officer or authority empowered to do so and such tax has been paid, refund or repayment of the same cannot be had except as and to the extent permitted by the statute itself. Were it not so, in consequence of posterior judicial pronouncement by a competent court of law in some other case reversing or differing from the construction of the statutory provision of the view of law entertained by the taxing authorities, all anterior assessments and payments of assessed taxes would necessarily have to be held to have become invalid and all claims for refund or repayment of taxes already paid would have to be decreed, unless barred by limitation, by the court on the ground of unjust enrichment whenever a suit for such relief is filed, even though no other ground may be available to the plaintiff. There is neither authority nor judicial precedent for such fantastic proposition.

4. I do not desire to express any opinion on the question as to whether threat or intimidation can constitute tort so as to be actionable, and, if so, under what circumstances. That question does not, on the facts of the instant case arise. Such tort, however, has acquired a distinct legal identity in England. Its legal existence as containing requisite incidence of furnishing adequate cause of action for a claim for damages can no longer be doubted in view of the decision of the House of Lords in Rooks v. Barnard, 1964