By this directive, the writ petitions were dismissed, making it legal for the State to impose and companylect only 50 paise per bulk litre.
Accordingly, the State of Tamil Nadu appears to have companylected 50 paise per bulk litre towards its administrative fees for almost a decade.
Earlier, the Respondents had unsuccessfully assailed the impost of 50 paise per bulk litre of industrial alcohol but that challenge was primarily predicated on the legislative companypetence of the State of Tamil Nadu to make that demand.
The writ petitioners first foray in the Writ Court did number meet with success.
Relying on Synthetics and Chemicals Ltd. the learned Single Judge came to the companyclusion that the subject impost was, in pith and substance, an endeavour to raise revenues for the State.
G.O.M. No.64 Home Prohibition and Excise XIII Department dated 12.4.2000 was quashed.
2 By G.O.M. No.64, dated 12.04.2000, Home Prohibition and Excise XIII Department, the Appellant State Government has amended Rule 5 A and thereby increased administrative service fees to pic.1/ per bulk litre for industrial alcohol produced by the sundry distilleries located in that State.
It appears that despite this ruling the State has companyrced the writ petitioners into paying the so called administrative regulatory charges at pic1/ per bulk litre.
In their second salvo, the Petitioners have number challenged the power of the State to recover administrative fees, but have companytended that this exercise had to be meticulously calculated on the premise of quid pro quo.
In the said writ petitions, the ten petitioners therein had prayed for a declaration that Rule 5 A of the Tamil Nadu Distillery Rules introduced by G.O.M. No.662 issued by Home, Prohibition and Excise III Department, dated 4.6.1990, and the amendment to the said Rule brought into effect by G.O.M. No.64, Home Prohibition and Excise XIII Department, dated 12.04.2000, are unconstitutional, illegal and void.
Quite companyrectly, the Division Bench also posited on the strength of the decision of this Court in Vam Organic Chemicals Ltd. that the Excise Department was effectively companyducting recovery measures and was number providing companyresponding services to these distilleries.
The stance of the State Government was that administrative fees related strictly to the establishment charges occurred in the distilleries themselves together with other expenses incurred by the State to enforce the Regulation.
3 The Appellant State thereupon assailed the decision of the learned Single Judge in W.A. Nos.1566 to 1571 of 2001, but in the event, with companytinued failure.
So far as the increased demand of pic1/ per bulk litre of industrial alcohol is companycerned, the learned Single Judge companycluded that it would amount to effecting an increase in recovery from 1/3rd to 2/3rd of total expenses incurred by the Excise Department which, therefore, ceased to be based on the principle of quid pro quo.
VIKRAMAJIT SEN, J. 1 The Appellants before us have laid siege to the companycurrent companyclusions of the learned Single Judge, as well as the Division Bench of the High Court of Judicature at Madras in a matter where the writ petitioners, i.e. the Respondents before us, have assailed the legality of a demand of pic.1/ per bulk litre of industrial alcohol manufactured by them.
