Retrospective tax amendment cannot override a court-sanctioned amalgamation date or revive a company's separate legal existence.

Retrospective tax legislation cannot nullify a company court order fixing the effective date of amalgamation and deeming the transferor company to continue for sales tax purposes. Once the sanctioned scheme terminated the transferor's corporate personality from the specified date, transactions after that date were no longer between distinct entities in law, so a later amendment could not create a new levy by restoring separate existence for the past period. Section 33C was therefore unconstitutional to the extent it operated retrospectively and applied before 4 May 2002.

---

---

Issues: Whether section 33C of the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1959, in so far as it applied retrospectively from 1 July 1981, could override or nullify the effective date of amalgamation fixed by a company court order under the Companies Act, 1956, and treat the amalgamating companies as distinct for sales tax purposes up to the date of approval of the scheme.

Analysis: The scheme of amalgamation sanctioned by the company court determined the effective date from which the transferor company's corporate personality ceased to exist. Once that date was fixed by judicial order, the State Legislature could not, by a later retrospective amendment, restore the separate legal existence of the amalgamating company for the same past period or create a sales tax liability on transactions that, in law, were no longer between two distinct entities. The retrospective operation of section 33C was therefore not merely clarificatory; it altered the legal basis of the judicial order itself and attempted to impose a new levy by deeming the companies to remain separate until the date of approval.

Conclusion: Section 33C was held unconstitutional to the extent it operated retrospectively and applied to the period prior to 4 May 2002; the petition succeeded on this ground.

Ratio Decidendi: A Legislature may alter the basis of a judicial decision by valid retrospective law, but it cannot, by retrospectively deeming a company to continue to exist for tax purposes, nullify a prior court order that has already fixed the effective date of amalgamation and destroyed the company's corporate personality from that date.

---