Full Judgment Text
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PETITIONER:
KRISHI UTPADAN MANDI SAMITI
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
DINESH CHANDRAASHOK KUMAR/AND ANOTHER
DATE OF JUDGMENT: 29/08/1996
BENCH:
PUNCHHI, M.M.
BENCH:
PUNCHHI, M.M.
MANOHAR SUJATA V. (J)
CITATION:
1996 SCALE (6)323
ACT:
HEADNOTE:
JUDGMENT:
[WITH Civil Appeal Nos.1679, 1680/82, 1961, 1962/84 and 2809
of 1982]
O R D E R
By the impugned common judgment, the High Court has
remitted the matter back to the Mandi Samitis concerned to
adjudicate upon the claim of the writ
petitioners/respondents herein, that no market fee is
chargeable from them as no service is rendered. This
direction was made despite the averment made by the Mandi
Samitis in the counter affidavits that they were rendering
some services like arrangement for electric light, water,
scavenging, other amenities in the marketyards, provision of
tents, urinals, culverts and construction of link roads.
Besides the existing services being rendered, infrastructure
of future services likely to be rendered had been disclosed
inasmuch as the process was said to be going on for
acquisition of land for construction of marketyards, market
complexes consisting of godowns, post-offices, banks,
warehouses, shelters and rest-houses etc. The High Court in
taking that step has put the Mandi Samitis into a war of
wits between them and the traders; the Samitis contending
that they have provided some facilities and are likely to
provide more in future and the traders contending that no
such facilities have been provided and none were expected to
be provided in the future. This controversy has been
enlivened on the supposition that on the principle of quid
pro quo, there should be near-balance of the fee demanded
and services rendered. That, in our view, is not the correct
approach. The High Court should not have left the matter at
large with the Mandi Samitis who in the nature of things,
would have to be Judges in their own cause; something
undesirable.
This Court in M.C.D. and others vs. Mohd. Yasin and
Another [1983 (3) SCC 229 at 235] summing up the judge-made
law on the point, observed as follows:
"....... Though a fee must have
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relation to the services rendered,
or the advantages conferred, such
relation need not be direct, a mere
casual relation may be enough.
Further neither the incidence of
the fee nor the service rendered
need be uniform. That others
besides those paying the fees are
also benefited does not detract
from the character of the fee. In
fact, the special benefit or
advantage to the payers of the fees
may even be secondary as compared
with the primary motive of
regulation in the public interest.
Nor is the court to assume the role
of a cost accountant. It is neither
necessary nor expedient to weigh
too meticulously the cost of the
services rendered etc. against the
amount, of fees collected so as to
evenly balance the two. A broad co-
relationship is all that is a
necessary quid pro quo in the
strict sense is not the one and
only true index of a fee; nor is it
necessarily absent in a tax."
This view has been constantly followed in later
decisions. The element of quid pro quo in its strict sense
is not always a sine qua non for a fee. See in this
connection City Corporation of Calicut vs. Thachambalath
Sadalinan and others [1985(2) SCR 1008] wherefrom the
following passage may be read with advantage:
"It is thus well settled by
numerous recent decisions of this
Court that the traditional concept
in a fee of quid pro quo is
undergoing a transformation and
that though the fee must have
relation to the services rendered,
or the advantages conferred, such
relation need not be direct, a mere
casual relation may be enough. It
is not necessary to establish that
those who pay the fee must receive
direct benefit of the services
rendered for which the fee is being
paid. If one who is liable to pay
receives general benefit from the
authority levying the fee the
element of service required for
collecting fee is satisfied. It is
not necessary that the person
liable to pay must receive some
special benefit or advantage for
payment of the fee."
Applying the ratio of the above decisions to the facts
emerging on the present files, it becomes patent that the
appellant-Samitis do render a number of services to persons
transacting their business and deals in the market-yards as
elsewhere, and it is not necessary that what they are
charging, would be shown to have been spent penny by penny
for the benefit of the fee payers and others concerned with
them. The High Court should have, if doubting, gone into the
question itself, whether the claim of the Samitis in
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rendering services was authentic or not, or else to have
gone by the word of the Samitis that they were rendering
such services. There was no occasion for the High Court to
have remitted the matter to the Mandi Samitis and thereby
open flood-gates of never ending disputes; counter-
productive to the good objects sought to be achieved by the
concerned enactment.
For the foregoing reasons, we allow these appeals, set
aside the impugned orders of the High Court and dismiss the
writ petition preferred by the respondents before the High
Court, but without any order as to costs.