Retrospective tax validation upheld where statutory amendment cured defects, preserved legislative power, and sustained the brick levy.

Retrospective validation of the U.P. sales tax levy was sustained where section 3-AB removed the defects found in the earlier levy by incorporating the impugned notifications into the statute, thereby curing the basis of the prior invalidation. The amendment was treated as a permissible change in law, not an unconstitutional encroachment on judicial power, because it did not overrule the earlier decision directly but altered the legal foundation retrospectively. Read with the incorporated notifications, section 3-AB also operated as part of the charging machinery by fixing the levy and rate for the relevant period. The statutory validation of the brick tax levy and related assessments was therefore upheld.

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Issues: (i) Whether section 3-AB of the U.P. Sales Tax Act, 1948 validly removed the defects found in the earlier levy and validated the impugned notifications and assessments; (ii) whether section 3-AB amounted to an unconstitutional encroachment on judicial power or merely retrospectively changed the law; (iii) whether section 3-AB could operate as a charging provision when read with the incorporated notifications.

Issue (i): Whether section 3-AB of the U.P. Sales Tax Act, 1948 validly removed the defects found in the earlier levy and validated the impugned notifications and assessments.

Analysis: The earlier invalidity had rested on excessive delegation and arbitrariness in the discretion conferred on the Government. Section 3-AB incorporated the impugned notifications into the statute itself, so they ceased to be subordinate legislation and became part of the enacted law. The basis of the earlier invalidation was therefore removed, and the legislature could validly validate the levy retrospectively.

Conclusion: The validation was upheld and the challenge failed.

Issue (ii): Whether section 3-AB amounted to an unconstitutional encroachment on judicial power or merely retrospectively changed the law.

Analysis: The retrospective amendment did not purport to overrule the prior judgment as such. It accepted the judicial decision and removed its foundation by changing the law with retrospective effect. Such a legislative course is permissible, because nullifying the effect of a judgment by altering the legal basis is different from trenching upon judicial power.

Conclusion: Section 3-AB was held not to be an unconstitutional encroachment on judicial power.

Issue (iii): Whether section 3-AB could operate as a charging provision when read with the incorporated notifications.

Analysis: Although section 3-AB was not phrased in ordinary charging terms, it expressly incorporated the notifications and gave them statutory force retrospectively. Read with those notifications, it fixed both the levy and the rate, and thus supplied the legal basis for the tax on bricks for the relevant period.

Conclusion: Section 3-AB was held to operate effectively as part of the charging machinery for the levy.

Final Conclusion: The statutory validation of the brick tax levy was sustained, the constitutional challenge was rejected, and the levy and assessments remained effective.

Ratio Decidendi: A legislature may constitutionally cure the defects in a tax levy by retrospectively amending the law and incorporating the impugned notifications into the statute, provided it removes the basis of the prior decision without purporting to exercise judicial power.

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