LAHORE DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY and others vs SEVEN-UP BOTTLING
This matter concerns petitions for leave to appeal against a judgment of the Lahore High Court, which declared the levy of an 'aquifer-fee' on private tubewells by the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) to be illegal. The core legal question was whether the LDA possessed the statutory authority to levy such fees under the Lahore Development Authority Act, 1975, following a legislative amendment to the relevant provision. The Supreme Court examined Section 29 of the Act, noting that while the original provision empowered the Authority to levy rates on private tubewells, the amended version substituted this power with a requirement for permission to install tubewells. The Court held that the amendment effectively removed the LDA's power to levy fees on existing or future tubewells. Consequently, the notification imposing the aquifer-fee was found to be without legal basis. The Court affirmed the High Court's decision, ruling that the LDA lacked the requisite statutory authority to impose the levy, and accordingly dismissed the petitions for leave to appeal.
- Does the Lahore Development Authority possess the power to levy fees on private tubewells under the amended Section 29 of the Lahore Development Authority Act 1975?
- Did the amendment to Section 29 of the Lahore Development Authority Act 1975 remove the authority's power to levy rates on tubewells?
- Section 29, Lahore Development Authority Act 1975
' MUNIR A. SHEIKH, J.---By this common judgment, we propose to decide the above petitions involving identical questions of law and facts.
2. These petitions have been directed against a common judgment dated 12-9-2002 of the Lahore High Court, Lahore, through which Constitutional petitions filed by the respondents challenging the legality of notification issued by the petitioners for levy of aquifer-fee on the tubewells installed by the writ petitioners in their premises have been accepted and the levy of the said fee declared illegal, against which leave is sought.
3. The relevant provision of the Lahore Development Authority Act, 1975 (XXX of 1975) as regards charging of aquifer-fee is section 29 as it stood before amendment which reads as under:-- "29. Fees on tubewells.---(1) The Authority shall have the exclusive right to use ground water resources within the area.
(2) The Authority may levy rates on private persons or private bodies who have installed or may install tubewells within its jurisdiction."
' It is manifest from subsection (2) that before amendment of this provision of the Act, the Lahore Development Authority was vested with the power to levy rates on all the private persons or private bodies who had installed or may install tubewells within its jurisdiction, but this subsection was amended through the Act No,XXX of 1975 and subsection (2) was substituted by following subsection (2):-- "(2) No person shall, without the permission of the Authority, install a tube-well at such places within the Area, as may be notified from time to time in the official Gazette by the Authority."
4. It is clear from a bare reading of substituted subsection (2) that instead of levying rates on the tubewells, it has been provided that only installation of tubewells without permission of the Lahore Development Authority has been prohibited therefore, there was no question of levy of rates through the notification impugned in the Constitutional petitions as such power no longer vested in the Lahore Development Authority therefore, the impugned judgment being in accordance with the provisions of the Act governing the subject does not suffer from any legal infirmity therefore, these petitions have no merits which are accordingly dismissed and leave refused.