PETITIONER:
KRISHI UTPADAN MANDI SAMITI
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
DINESH CHANDRAASHOK KUMAR/AND ANOTHER
DATE OF JUDGMENT: 29/08/1996
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]
ORDER
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
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 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; counterproductive 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.