No Tax and No Spending Without Law

In one line

Nothing may be taken from the citizen except by authority of law, nothing may be taken out of the fund except in accordance with law, and there are three funds, not one.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: article 265 provides that no tax shall be levied or collected except by authority of law; article 266(1) constitutes the Consolidated Fund of India out of all revenues received by the Government of India, all loans raised by it by the issue of treasury bills, loans or ways and means advances and all moneys received by it in repayment of loans, with a corresponding Consolidated Fund of each State, and article 266(2) credits all other public moneys received by or on behalf of a Government to the public account, while article 266(3) provides that no moneys out of a Consolidated Fund shall be appropriated except in accordance with law and for the purposes and in the manner provided in the Constitution; and article 267 empowers Parliament and a State Legislature by law to establish a Contingency Fund in the nature of an imprest, placed at the disposal of the President or Governor, to enable advances for unforeseen expenditure pending authorisation.

Proposition one: no tax without law

Article 265. No tax shall be levied or collected except by authority of law.

Read the two verbs, because the second is the one students omit. Not merely levied, that is imposed, but also collected. A tax lawfully imposed but collected without authority is collected in breach of article 265, and a tax collected under a law later held invalid is collected without authority.

And read "by authority of law". Not "by law": an executive notification under a valid statute is authority of law; an executive order with no statute behind it is not. That is the constitutional root of everything chapter 1050 said about a rule that imposes a charge, and of chapter 1220's doctrine that a legislature may not delegate the essential legislative function.

Article 265 stands in Part XII and not in Part III, so it is not a fundamental right; but a levy without authority of law is nonetheless void, and the remedy is the ordinary one.

Proposition two: no appropriation without law

Article 266(3). No moneys out of the Consolidated Fund of India or the Consolidated Fund of a State shall be appropriated except in accordance with law and for the purposes and in the manner provided in this Constitution.

Two limbs, and both matter.

"Except in accordance with law": the Appropriation Act under article 114, chapter 1330. No Appropriation Act, no withdrawal.

"And for the purposes and in the manner provided in this Constitution": even with an Act, the money must go to the purposes the House granted it for. Spending an appropriation on another head is a breach of article 266(3) itself, and chapter 1010's audit paragraph about money voted for wells and spent on buildings is a constitutional complaint and not merely an accounting one.