STATE OF MADRAS Vs. S PADMANABHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals by special leave from a judgment of the Madras High Court involve the question of the validity of a notification No. 976 issued under the provisions of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959, hereinafter called the Act, which was to come into force on April 1, 1959.

(2.) The respondents are dealers in fruits in the State of Tamil Nadu. Originally under the Madras General Sales Tax Act 1939 the sale of fruits was liable to tax. By means of a notification dated March 25, 1954 the sale of fruitsamong other cammodities was exempted from payment of tax under S. 6 of that Act. The 1939 Act was repealed and re-enacted by the Act which was published in the Official Gazette on March 18,1959 but which was to come into force, as stated before, on.App 1: 1959 On March 28, 1959 the passed G. O. No. 976 which was as follows:

(3.) Section 3 provides for the levy of taxes on sale or purchase of goods. Under the first proviso to subsection (1) of that section it was expressly laid down that in case of goods specified therein which included fresh fruits the rate of tax would be 1% on the turnover of a dealer whose total turnover for a year was not less than Rs, 10,000/-. Under the second proviso the dealers dealing exclusively in one or more of the goods enumerated in the first proviso except food-grains, rice products, wheat products and milk whose total turnover for a year was not mare than 30,000/- were not to be liable to pay tax under sub-section (1). Section 17 empowered the Government by notification to make an exemption or reduction in rate in respect of any tax payable under the Act. Now what the Government did was that it made an order on March 28, 1959 in anticipation of the coming into force of the Act on April 1, 1959 It decided that a notification be published in the Fort St. George Gazette on April 1, 1959 declaring the exemptions which would be granted under S, 17 of the Act in suppression of all the previous notifications issued under S. 6 of the Act of 1939. It is not disputed that the impugned notification was actually published in the Gazette on April 1, 1959. On that date the Act had come into force. We are wholly unable to comprehend how the validity of the notification could be impugned when it was actually promulgated on the date on which the Act came into force. The mere fact that it bore an earlier date was of no consequence. Section 53 (4) of the Act expressly provided: