LexTHE STATE TRADING CORPORATION OF INDIA LTD. & OTHERS versus THE COMMERCIAL TAX OFFICER, VISAKHA- PATNAM AND OTHERS
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- 4 S.C.R. SUPREME COURT REPORTS 99 THE STATE TRADING CORPORATION OF INDIA 1963 LTD. & OTHERS v. THE COMMERCIAL TAX OFFICER, VISAKHA- PATNAM AND OTHERS (.B. P. SINHA, c. J., s. K. DAS, P. B. GAJENDRAGADKAR, A. K. SARKAR, K. N. WANcHoo, M. HmAYATULLAH, K. C. DAs GUPTA, J. C. SHAH and N. RAJAGOPALA AYYANGAR JJ.J Fundamental Right, Enforcement of-Corporation, if a citizen entitled to claim fundamental rights-Constitution of India, Arts. 19(1)(f) and (g), 32. The State Trading Corporation of India is a private lirnited com· pany registered under the Indian Co1npanies Act, 1956, with its he.ad Office at Delhi and its entire capital is contributed by the Govern· ment of India. The Sales-tax Authorities of the States of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar sought to assess the Corporation to sales tax under their respective Sales Tax i\cts and issued notices of demand. Thi'.: Corporation claiming to be an Indian citizen filed petitions under Art. 32 of the Constitution for quashing the said proceedings on the ground that they infringed its fundamental rights under Art. 19(1) (f) and (g) of the Constitution. Preliminary objections having been taken by the respondents to the maintainability of the said petitions, the Constitution Bench hearing the matters referred the t\vo following questions for decision by the special bench~ "(1) Whether the State Trading Corporation, a company- registered under the Indian Companies Act, 1956, is a citizen within the meaning of Art. 19 of the Constitution and can ask for the enforcement of fundamental rights granted to citizens under the said article; and (2) whether the State Trading Cor- poration is, not\vithstanding the formality of incorporation under the Indian Companies Act, 1956, in substance, a department and organ of the Government of India with the entirety of its capital contributed by Government; and c.an it claim to enforce fundamental rights under Part III of the Constitution against the State as defined in Art. 12 thereof. Held, (DAs GuPTA and SHAH JJ., dissenting) that the answer to the first question must be in the negative. Per S1NHA, C. J., S. K. DAs, GAJENDRAGADKAR, SARKAR, WANCHOO and Ayyangar JJ. There can be no citizens of India not mentioned in Part II of tho Constitution or by the Citizenship Act, 1955. These provisions are wholly exhaustive and contem- plate only natural persons. Part III of the Constitution makes a clear distinction betwcc:n fundamental rights available to "any person" and those guaranteed /uly, 26. 1963 The Stat< Trading Corpo- ration of India Ltd. & Others. v. The Commer- cial Tax Officer, Visakhapatnam and Others. 100 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1964] to "all citizens", indicating thereby that under the Constitution all c1t1.zens are persons but all persons are not citizens Part II of. the Constitution relating to 'citizenship' is clearly inapplicable to juristic persons and the provisions of the Citizen· ship Act, 1955, enacted by Parliament under Art. 11 of the Con- stitution, show that such persons are outside the purview of the Act. It cannot therefore, be said that either Part II of the ConSti· tution or the Citizenship Act, 1955, confers the right of citizen· ship or recognises as citizen any person other than a natural person. They do not contemplate a corporation as a citizen. In none of the relevant decisions this Court gave its consi- dered judgment on the present issues and the question now raised are open questions. Chiranjit Lal Chowdhuri v. Union of India [1950] S.C.R. 869, Dwarkadas Srinivas of Bombay v. The Sholapur Spinning & Weaving Co. Ltd. [1954] S.C.R. 674 and Bengal Immunity Co. Ltd. v. State of Bihar, [1955] 2 S.C.R. 603, considered. 'Nationality' and 'citizenship' are not synonymous. A corpo- ration can claim nationality which is ordinarily determifled by the plac.e of it.5 incorporation. But while nationality detennines the civil right.5 of a natural or artificial person, particularly wit.i. reference to international law, citizenship is intimately connected with civic rights under municipal law. All citizens are, therefore, nationals of a particular State and enjoy full political rights but all nationals arc not citizens and do not have full political rights. It was not correct to say that the word 'citizen' in Art. 5 was not as wide as in Art. 19 of the Constitution or that Part II of the Constitution supplemented by the provisions
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