JUDGMENT

UNTWALIA, J.:—In these groups of Civil Appeals and Writ Petitions, Broadly speaking, the question which falls for determination is the validity of certain provisions of the Punjab Agricultural Produce Markets Act, 1961 (Punjab Act No. 23 of 1961), hereinafter referred to as the Act, and the Rules framed by the States of Punjab and Haryana under the said Act as also the validity of the fixation of market fees from time to time by the various Market Committees in the States aforesaid under the direction of the Punjab State Agricultural Produce Marketing Board and the Haryana State Agricultural Produce Marketing Board. All these cases have been heard together and are being disposed of by a common judgment.

2. In the erstwhile composite State of Punjab the Act was passed in the year 1961 to consolidate and amend the law relating to the better regulation of the purchase, sale, storage and processing of agricultural produce and the establishment of markets for agricultural produce in the State. Under Section 3 of the Act the State Agricultural Marketing Board was constituted for the entire area of the composite State, which later, in the year 1966 came to be bifurated into the St