Tax notification and provisional assessment failed for want of operative statutory authority under the governing scheme.

Tax liability could not be sustained on a notification issued before the amended charging provision had come into force, because section 22 of the U.P. General Clauses Act could not validate an order made outside the operative statutory window. The notification dated 31 March 1956 was therefore treated as invalid. On the assessment side, rule 41 of the United Provinces Sales Tax Rules, 1948 did not authorise the provisional assessment adopted on the facts, as the earlier return-based machinery had ceased to fit the amended scheme and the substituted rule was not yet operative. The levy, demand, and provisional assessment were unsustainable.

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Issues: (i) Whether the notification dated 31 March 1956, fixing tax at one anna per rupee on specified goods, was validly issued so as to be saved by section 22 of the U.P. General Clauses Act. (ii) Whether rule 41 of the United Provinces Sales Tax Rules, 1948, authorised a provisional assessment on the facts of the case.

Issue (i): Whether the notification dated 31 March 1956, fixing tax at one anna per rupee on specified goods, was validly issued so as to be saved by section 22 of the U.P. General Clauses Act.

Analysis: The notification was issued on 31 March 1956, when the amended sub-section (2) of section 3-A of the U.P. Sales Tax Act had not yet taken effect. The power under section 22 of the U.P. General Clauses Act applies only where the enactment is published but has not yet come into force, so that orders or notifications may be made in the interval before commencement. On the view accepted in the judgment, the Ordinance and the amendments were not operative for the purpose of authorising the notification on that date, and the retrospective amendment to section 22 did not validate a notification that could not have been issued under the unamended provision.

Conclusion: The notification was invalid and could not sustain the levy.

Issue (ii): Whether rule 41 of the United Provinces Sales Tax Rules, 1948, authorised a provisional assessment on the facts of the case.

Analysis: After the amendments brought about by U.P. Act VIII of 1954, the earlier machinery under rule 41, which had depended on a dealer's option to file periodic returns of part of the assessment year, had ceased to fit the new statutory scheme. The substituted rule authorising quarterly returns was not yet in force on the date of the impugned assessment. In that interval there was no effective rule empowering the assessing authority to make a provisional assessment in the manner adopted. The assessment order was therefore unsupported by the rule-making framework then in force.

Conclusion: The provisional assessment was unauthorised and unsustainable.

Final Conclusion: The impugned levy and demand were quashed, and the writ petition succeeded with costs.

Ratio Decidendi: A notification or assessment affecting tax liability must be supported by a power that has already become operative under the governing statute or valid subordinate legislation; a provision that is only prospective, or a transitional saving clause that does not yet apply, cannot validate action taken before the relevant commencement date.

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