The Supreme Court upheld the validity of the Madhya Pradesh Motor Vehicles (Taxation of Passengers) Amendment and Validation Act, confirming the imposition of the tax on passengers while allowing operators to collect it.

1. This order will also govern Misc. Petitions Nos. 271, 301 and 320, all of 1962.

2. These are four petitions under Art.226 of the Constitution of India by private limited companies engaged in the business of plying stage carriages challenging the vires of S.2 and S.4 of the Madhya Pradesh Motor Vehicles (Taxation of Passengers) Amendment and Validation Act, 1962 (hereinafter referred to as the Validating Act). The petitioners seek a declaration that the said provisions are constitutionally invalid, ultra vires and unenforceable, and pray that a suitable direction be issued to the opponents forbearing them from giving effect to those provisions in any manner whatsoever.

3. The matter arises thus. In 1959 the Madhya Pradesh Motor Vehicles (Taxation of Passengers) Act, 1959, (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act) was enacted. It came into force on 1st February 1961. By S.3(1) of the Principal Act, it was provided that on the commencement of that Act "there shall be levied and paid to the State Government a tax on all passengers carried by stage carriages at a rate equivalent to ten per cent. of the fare (inclusive of tax) payable to the operator of a stage carriage. S.4 of the principal Act lays down that "Save as otherwise provided by this Act, no passenger shall be allowed to travel by the operator in a stage carriage unless he is issued a ticket in the prescribed form for the journey." The principal Act also contains provisions for the imposition of penalty if the whole or any portion of tax payable to the Government in respect of a stage carriage for any period has not been paid in time, for the recovery of the tax amount as arrears of land revenue from the operator, for the keeping and maintenance of accounts and registers in the prescribed form by the operator in respect of stage carriages and the fares collected from passengers travelling therein, and for making an operator liable to punishment if he submits an incorrect or incomplete return or fails to submit one or if he fraudulently evades or allows to be evaded the payment of any tax due from him or fraudulently makes or allows to be made wrong entries or omissions in the accounts or registers maintained by him or if he wilfully contravenes any of the provisions of the principal Act or of any rules made thereunder.

4. The constitutionality of the principal Act was first challenged in this Court by a petition under Art.226 filed by the Mahamaya Motor Transport Co. pany (M. P. No. 29 of 1961 decided on 26th September 1961) inter alia on the grounds that the said Act was invalid for vagueness and uncertainty, that it did not indicate with any definiteness as to who was liable to pay the tax, and that the tax imposed was on the operator and was repugnant to Art.19(1)(g), Art.301 and Art.304(b) of the Constitution. All these contentions were rejected by a Division Bench of this Court and it was held that the tax imposed was one on passengers carried by road and fall within Entry - 56 of List - II of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, and that the principal Act did not infringe Art.19(1)(g), Art.301 and Art.304(b) See Mahamaya Motor Transport Co. v. State of M.P., 1962 MP LJ 79 (SN) . In that case, while rejecting the contention that the burden of the tax would fall on the operator unless and until the maximum fares chargeable by the operator were revised under S.43 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939, the Divis