Exemption schedule amendment powers are limited: a statutory schedule can be enlarged, but not narrowed by executive notification.

State power under section 10(2) of the Madhya Pradesh General Sales Tax Act was confined to enlarging Schedule I by adding goods or relaxing conditions and exceptions; it did not extend to excluding goods already included. Section 21 of the Madhya Pradesh General Clauses Act, 1957 was inapplicable because Schedule I formed part of the Act itself, not a subordinate notification. The legal effect is that an exemption schedule may be widened or its conditions eased, but it cannot be narrowed by executive notification.

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Issues: Whether the State Government, under section 10(2) of the Madhya Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, had power only to widen the scope of Schedule I by including additional goods or relaxing conditions, or also to curtail the exemption by excluding goods already included; and whether section 21 of the Madhya Pradesh General Clauses Act, 1957 could support such exclusion.

Analysis: Schedule I formed part of the statute itself and was not a product of subordinate legislation. Section 10(2) expressly authorised amendment of Schedule I only so as to include goods not already specified or to relax or omit conditions and exceptions in the relevant entry. That language conferred a limited power to enlarge the exemption or remove conditions for its enjoyment, but not a power to reduce the scope of the statutory schedule. Section 21 of the Madhya Pradesh General Clauses Act, 1957, which treats a power to issue notifications and similar instruments as including power to add to, amend, vary or rescind what has been issued, was inapplicable to a schedule that was itself part of the Act.

Conclusion: The State Government had no power to exclude goods from Schedule I under section 10(2), and reliance on section 21 of the Madhya Pradesh General Clauses Act, 1957 was misplaced. The challenge to the notification succeeded.

Final Conclusion: The exemption schedule could be enlarged or conditions relaxed, but it could not be narrowed by executive notification.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a statute confers power to amend a legislative schedule only for specified enlarging purposes, that power cannot be implied to authorise exclusion of items already covered, and the general power to amend notifications does not apply to a schedule forming part of the Act itself.

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