PRAKASH TALKIES Vs. GOVERNMENT OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) COMMONALITY of question of law and similarity of facts made us to dispose of these three writ petitions by this order. These writ petitions are filed assailing the A.P. Ordinance No. 1/1991, Gazetted on 2.1.1991, which later became Act 23 of 1991, as being ultra vires the Constitution.

(2.) ALL the petitioners are exhibitors under the Entertainment Tax Act. The Act was amended, amending Section 4(2) of Act 23/91 wherein the tax was increased from 18% to 24%, which was subsequently reduced to 21%. This levy of tax also differs from category to category and according to the classification assigned by the Government in respect of the theatres.

(3.) WE see sufficient force. The amendment to any fiscal statute or to a statute imposing any tax or increasing any existing taxation structure is not retrospective and cannot be construed as having retrospective effect, Unless the Legislature specifically directs it to be retrospective in operation. The intention of the Legislature in passing a particular enactment has to be gathered from the statute itself. By a reading of the statute, it is not clear that the Legislature intended to give retrospective effect to the legislation in question. Therefore, the amendment will become operative only with effect from 11.1.1991. We, therefore, hold that the petitioners are liable to pay the enhanced entertainment tax at the new rates only from 11.1.1991 and not from any earlier date, and that the petitioners are liable to pay the enhanced entertainment tax at the old rates only, for the period earlier to 11.1.1991.