JUDGMENT T. L. Viswanatha Iyer, J. - This writ petition is by nine abkari contractors, who have obtained licence to vend arrack in the year 1993-94. They opted for payment of sales tax on their sales of arrack under section 7(14) of the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, 1963 (KGST Act) by payment of tax at the rate of 40 per cent of the total rental amount payable under the Abkari Act for the licence. In the previous year 1992-93 the tax payable was only 20 per cent of the kist amount. The writ petition contains a challenge to the increase of the tax payable to 40 per cent in the year 1993-94 and prayer (a) in the writ petition is to declare the amended provisions of sub-clause (14) of section 7 of the KGST Act as illegal, unconstitutional and void. According to the petitioners, they have paid the compounded amount of tax which is payable in monthly instalments, for a few months, in some cases up to and inclusive of December, 1993. The tax due for the subsequent months is in arrear. The other prayer in the writ petition is for the issue of a writ of prohibition restraining the respondents from recovering the sales tax at 40 per cent of the rental "without adjudication by an independent authority" or in the alternative to permit the petitioners to pay the tax due from them in six monthly instalments. When this writ petition came on for admission counsel for the petitioners submitted that they are not pressing the challenge to the provisions of the KGST Act and that they are confining the relief in the writ petition to the grant of instalment facility. I put to counsel for the petitioners whether the withdrawal of the challenge to the provisions of the Act was conditional on the instalment facility being granted, when counsel said that irrespective of whether the instalment facility was granted or not, the petitioners were not pressing the challenge to the provisions of the Act. The only prayer that therefore survives for consideration is that the petitioners may be permitted to pay the balance amount of tax due from them at the compounded rate in instalments. Needless to say the respondents represented by Sri T. Karunakaran Nambiar, Special Government Pleader for Taxes opposed the motion. The only prayer that therefore survives for consideration is that the petitioners may be permitted to pay the balance amount of tax due from them at the compounded rate in instalments. Needless to say the respondents represented by Sri T. Karunakaran Nambiar, Special Government Pleader for Taxes opposed the motion. According to counsel for the petitioners, this Court exercising jurisdiction under article 226 of the Constitution can and should grant the benefit of payment in easy instalments of whatever that may be due from the petitioners by way of tax. But, before I proceed to discuss this question I must refer briefly to the history that has gone behind this litigation. Enhancement of the compounded rate of tax payable by arrack dealers to 40 per cent in the year 1993-94 under section 7(14) effected by amendment to section 7(14) of the Act in 1993 is now under challenge in a series of writ petitions which are actually coming up on the 7th March for final hearing. Arrack dealers had moved for stay of operation of this amendment and Balasubramanian, J., in his order in C.M.P. No. 29047 of 1993 in O.P. No. 15953 of 1993 rejected the prayer for stay made by the arrack dealers, the petitioners therein. This order was taken up in appeal, namely Writ Appeal No. 1668 of 1993 which was disposed of by a Bench of Varghese Kalliath and Usha, JJ., on January 3, 1994, (V. S. Jyothish Kumar v. State of Kerala) the Bench holding that the writ appeal was not maintainable. But the writ petition was ordered to be posted for hearing within a month, which however did not happen. When similar matters came up before me after the Christmas recess the prayer for stay was not entertained by me and the petitions filed for the purpose were rejected, consistently with the order passed earlier by Balasubramanian, J. and in the writ appeal. Two of these interlocutory orders passed by me in O.P. Nos. 317 and 459 of 1994 were taken up in appeal before a Division Bench and the Division Bench consisting of John Mathew and Narayana Kurup, JJ., disposed of the same on February 10, 1994 directing that the respective appellants may pay 25 per cent of the demand before March 10, 1994 or before the date of the abkari auction, whichever is earlier. The appellants were also directed to furnish security for the balance within three weeks with a further direction that they should pay the amount in five equal instalments commencing from March 31, 1994. It was further ordered that if the first instalment of 25 per cent was paid before the stipulated date, the appellants will be permitted to participate in the abkari auction for the ensuing year. When two similar matters came up before me for admission and interim orders thereafter, I granted stay following the Division Bench to ensure consistency in as much as it will not be fair for this Court to deny the benefit of stay when the appellants in the writ appeals mentioned earlier had derived the benefit of instalment payment. But the Special Government Pleader Sri. T. Karunakaran Nambiar very vehemently opposed for the passing of an order of stay with the submission that the State had not agreed to the instalment benefit and that they were filing applications for review on the ground that the Bench had not been apprised of the earlier judgment of another Bench in Writ Appeal No. 1668 of 1993 (V. S. Jyothish Kumar v. State of Kerala). Accordingly I granted stay for two weeks, leaving the matter to be dealt with later in the light of any subsequent order of the Division Bench in the review petitions which the State had filed or proposed to file. The Division Bench thereafter heard the review petitions and passed an order on February 24, 1994 allowing the review and dismissing the writ appeals before them as not maintainable. In passing the said order, the Division Bench stated the reasons why they were induced to pass the earlier order of February 10. The Division Bench thereafter heard the review petitions and passed an order on February 24, 1994 allowing the review and dismissing the writ appeals before them as not maintainable. In passing the said order, the Division Bench stated the reasons why they were induced to pass the earlier order of February 10. It was stated that the earlier judgment in the writ appeals had protected the interests of the State, that in effect they had upheld the validity of the amendment to section 7(14) made in the year 1993, that the appellants before them had stated that if they were granted the benefit of instalments, they will not press the writ petitions, that if the writ petitions are allowed the State will be entitled to recover only 20 per cent of the kist amount by way of tax, that if otherwise the petitioners defaulted to pay the amount of tax the State could recover it only by coercive process which involved practical difficulties, that there were other challenges to the Act which challenges could have been avoided by a withdrawal of the original petitions resulting in benefit to the State and that it was for these and other reasons that the Bench was inclined to grant instalment benefits to the appellants before it. However and after narrating the reasons which induced them to pass the previous order the Bench stated that the appeals were not maintainable and accordingly vacated the previous order on review and dismissed the writ appeals as not maintainable. In view of the submission made by the appellants before the Division Bench that the challenge to the amendment will not be pressed if they were granted the benefit of instalments, I posted the various writ petitions numbering over sixty challenging the amendment of 1993 on March 1 to ascertain from the petitioners whether all of them were of the same mind set and were not pressing the amendment if the benefit of instalment was granted to them. But barring a few most of the petitioners stated before me on the 1st of March, when these petitions were called that they are all pressing the challenge to the amendment and that they were not merely wangling for the instalment facility for payment of the dues. Accordingly the writ petitions were posted for hearing on March 7, 1994. But barring a few most of the petitioners stated before me on the 1st of March, when these petitions were called that they are all pressing the challenge to the amendment and that they were not merely wangling for the instalment facility for payment of the dues. Accordingly the writ petitions were posted for hearing on March 7, 1994. It is in this background that this original petition has come up before me for admission and as stated earlier though it contains a challenge to the provisions of section 7(14) as amended, that prayer is not pressed and the only relief claimed is for instalment facility. What in effect the petitioners claim is a direction to the State to recover the amount of tax from them only in instalments. I put a question whether such a plea is maintainable and under what provision of law or legal principle such a direction could be given to the State to recover amounts admittedly due to them in instalments thereby waiving the rights which they have under the provisions of KGST Act. Counsel submitted that he founds his claim for the benefit of instalment payment under the judgment in the review petitions in the writ appeals above mentioned which according to him recognises a right in the petitioners to claim instalment benefit for payment of tax admittedly due. Counsel relies on the various reasons which the Division Bench has given as those which prompted them to pass the first order of February 10, 1994 and he also lays stress on the last sentence in the judgment by which the Division Bench observed that it was open to the appellants to pray for instalment facility in the writ petition itself. According to counsel, the Division Bench has laid down the law of the land and that it has got to be followed by granting instalment facility to the petitioners. Sri. T. Karunakaran Nambiar appearing for the respondents vehemently opposes this prayer stating that the whole thing is misconceived and that the petitioners cannot claim any instalment benefit as of right. The facts are not in dispute. The petitioners have admittedly compounded the tax payable by them at 40 per cent of the kist amount under section 7(14) of the KGST Act. The facts are not in dispute. The petitioners have admittedly compounded the tax payable by them at 40 per cent of the kist amount under section 7(14) of the KGST Act. Sub-section (15) of the section obliges them to make payment of the compounded amount in monthly instalments after deducting the tax paid by them on the purchase of arrack for each month. Going by the provisions of the Act it is clear that the amount is payable by the petitioners in monthly instalments at the compounded rate. Non-payment of the tax on the due dates visits the defaulter with the consequences laid down in section 23(3) among others of payment of penal interest on the amount due besides exposing him to proceedings for recovery in the manner prescribed therein. When the mandate of the law is that the tax shall be paid in monthly instalments as prescribed in sub-section (15), it will not be open for this Court to direct Government to recover the amount in a manner different from that prescribed by the statute itself. The power of this Court is to keep within the bounds of law and not to issue directions contrary to law Sini Kurialose v. State of Kerala (1987) 2 KLT 425 . The issue of a direction or a mandamus to the respondents postulates the existence of a legal right in the petitioner and a corresponding legal duty on the part of the respondents, which they have defaulted in performing. Petitioners have no legal right to insist that the tax shall be paid at their leisure and as suggested by them, their right being only to insist that it shall be collected in the manner prescribed, namely in monthly instalments prescribed by sub-section (15). Nor is there any legal duty on the part of the respondents to collect the amount in instalments otherwise than as provided in the statute itself. In fact it was held by this Court as early as in 1978 that there was no provision in the KGST Act which enabled even the Government, the creditor, to allow the benefit of instalment payment of tax due under the Act. In fact it was held by this Court as early as in 1978 that there was no provision in the KGST Act which enabled even the Government, the creditor, to allow the benefit of instalment payment of tax due under the Act. (Haridas v. Assistant Commissioner, Sales Tax [1979] 44 STC 26 (Ker)), which was approved by the decisions in Sreekumar v. State of Kerala [1992] 86 STC 274 (Ker) [FB]; 1992 KLJ (Tax Cases) 202 [FB] and Abdulla v. Sales Tax Officer [1992] 86 STC 259 (Ker) [FB]; 1992 KLJ (Tax Cases) 259 [FB]. This being the legal position, on which there could be no dispute, the petitioners cannot insist that as a matter of right, they are entitled to an order from this Court for payment of the amount of tax due in instalments as suggested by them. They have already been granted the benefit of instalments under section 7(15) and it is not for this Court to direct that the amount shall be collected in a different system of instalments. Petitioners' claim as mentioned earlier is based only on the decision of the Division Bench and not on any provision of law. The decision of the Division Bench does not really conclude any issue in favour of the petitioners. The Division Bench has only stated the reasons why they passed the earlier order on February 10, 1994 granting instalments. Evidently there was no serious opposition at that stage to the order which they passed. It was only later when the Government realised the seriousness of the matter that they came up with the review petitions and the Division Bench vacated the previous order. The fact that there was no serious opposition is evident from the fact that the Division Bench does not even appear to have been apprised of the earlier ruling of Varghese Kalliath and Usha, JJ. that such a writ appeal was not maintainable. The Division Bench therefore expressed the reasons why they passed the earlier order. I am sure the Division Bench did not intend to lay down any binding principle of law applicable for all cases. The State is the creditor and it is for the State to decide what is in their best interest. May be the State may be benefited by the challenge to the amendment being withdrawn or by the direction to make payment in instalments. The State is the creditor and it is for the State to decide what is in their best interest. May be the State may be benefited by the challenge to the amendment being withdrawn or by the direction to make payment in instalments. But ultimately it is the State that should be the best judge of what is beneficial to it. Evidently and perhaps without realising the complications, there was no serious opposition before the Division Bench when the matter came up for hearing on February 10, 1994 and the first order was passed on the writ appeals. The decision of the Division Bench in the appeals, which ultimately they held as not maintainable is not therefore one which obliges a single Judge to pass an order granting the benefit of instalments though the petitioners have very graciously conceded in the writ petition larger powers to the single Judge than the Division Bench in the following words : "A study of the said order passed by this honourable Court in the said review petitions would make out the fact that contractors have a right to get instalment facility in the original petition, but not in a writ appeal against the order refusing to stay the operation of the impugned amendment." I therefore hold that the petitioners cannot as of right claim that they are entitled to pay the amounts in instalments as suggested by them. It is true that this Court's powers under article 226 of the Constitution are very wide and this Court may in given cases pass such orders as are in the interests of justice. The fact that the powers are wide itself requires this Court to exercise restraint in the exercise of its power. No extraordinary situations are set forth in this case, nor do any questions of interests of justice arise, except that the petitioners want to pay the amount in instalments without anything more. The view that I have taken that an approach to this Court merely for the sake of instalment payment is not warranted has been taken by another Division Bench of this Court (Jagannadha Rao, C.J. and Balakrishnan, J.) in their judgment in O.P. No. 19 of 1994 dated January 7, 1994, where similar prayers were pressed before them based on the order of a learned single Judge in a miscellaneous petition. The learned Judges observed in paragraph 7 of the judgment that the said order did not deal with the points raised, nor was it an authority for the proposition canvassed. The Bench went on to state that if the learned single Judge who passed the order intended even remotely to lay down any such proposition as was canvassed, they were not in agreement with the said view. I may mention that O.P. No. 19 of 1994 was also one for grant of time for payment of kist amount in instalments, as is evident from paragraph 1 of the judgment. The Division Bench declined that prayer. I am therefore supported in my view by the opinion of the Division Bench as well. I therefore decline the prayer made by the petitioners for grant of instalment facility. So far as the challenge to the amendment is concerned, I record the statement made on behalf of the petitioners that the said challenge is not pressed. The original petition is therefore dismissed. Petition dismissed.