| J. DAS ACTG. 270 of 1955. Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India for a Writ in the nature of Habeas Corpus. The facts which are not in dispute may be shortly stated as follows. The said Govindji Deoji Halai (hereinafter referred to as the "assessee") is the sole proprietor of a business carried on under the name and style of Indestro Sales and Service Co. at No. 50 52, Lohar Chawl Street in the City of Bombay. Two private limited companies, namely, Indestro India Ltd., and Indestro Eastern Ltd., also carry on business and have their respective offices in the same premises. The assessee is said to have some connection with the two companiesThe nature of which, however, is not quite clear on the record before us 46 tax Act which is impugned before us runs as follows: "46. (a): Section 46(2) of the Indian Income tax Act. (1). The Income tax Officer may forward to the Collector a certificate under his signature specifying the amount of arrears due from an assessee, and the Collector, on receipt of such certificate, shall proceed to recover from such assessee the amount specified therein as if it were an arrear of land revenue: Provided that without prejudice to any other powers of the Collector in this behalf, he shall for the purpose of recovering the said amount have the powers which under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (Act V of 1908), a Civil Court has for the recovery of an amount due under a decree. The first objection to the above sub section is that it 893 A. A cursory perusal of the provisions of the different Acts referred to above will at once show that in the matter of recovery of arrears of land revenue the different States have prescribed different machinery, some obviously harsher than others. A Collector in West Bengal proceeding to recover the certified amount under the Bengal Public Demands Recovery Act, 1913 (Bengal Act III of 1913) cannot, under section 31 of that Act, direct the detention of the defaulting assessee in prison for more than six months if the amount is more 896 than Rs. 50. The Assam Land and Revenue Regulation, 1886 (Reg. I of 1886) does not insist on imprisonment at all. The State laws prescribe the procedure for the recovery of income tax as if it were an arrear of land. Section 148 of the U.P. Land Revenue Act) 1901 (U. P. Act R.C. 869. The meaning, scope and effect of the article in question have been explained by this Court in a series of decisions beginning with that in Chiranjit Lal Chowdhury vs The Union of India(1) and ending with the decision of this Court (1) [1950] S. 899 that article 14 condemns discrimination not only by a substantive law but also by a law of procedure". The respective contentions now put forward as to the validity or otherwise of section 46(2) of the Indian Income tax Act have to be judged in the light of the principles so laid down by the Full Court. In order, however, to pass the test of permissible classification two conditions must be fulfilled, namely, (i) that the classification must be founded on an intelligible differentia which distinguishes persons or things that are grouped together from The State of Rajasthan vs Rao Manohar Singhji(2) which is relied on by learned counsel for the petitioner is easily (1) ; ; (2) ; 902 distinguishable on facts for, the law impugned in that case for the first time imposed certain disabilities on Jagirdars of a certain area of the State and there was no evidence that those Jagirdar were in any way different from the Jagirdrs of the other areas of the state. We do not, however, find it necessary to express any opinion on the extreme contention urged by the learned Attorney General, on the authority of that decision, that a mere territorial classification, by itself and without anything else, is enough to place the law beyond the operation of the equal protection clause. For the purposes of this case it will suffice to say that the discrimination complained " This amendment is nothing less than an enactment of a new provision. It lays down a new law which is similar to the law laid down by section 157 of the Bombay Land Revenue Code, 1879. It is true that the warrant of attachment of the property was issued on the 24th March 1954 but the sale proclamation was issued and the sale was actually held after the date of amendment. It was faintly suggested that as the assessment proceedings had been started and the certificate had been issued by the Income tax Officer to the Additional Collector of Bombay and the additional Collector issued a notice of demand and actually attached the properties prior to the amendment, the assessee must be governed by section 13 as it originally stood and not by it as subsequently amended. We do not think there is any substance in this contention. The law was not dead. The defaulting assessee might have paid up the dues in which Mr. Speaker, I am not in a position to comment on the merits of the present law. But the law as it now stands can be supported on the grounds mentioned by my |