Retrospective statutory power does not validate an earlier notification unless it was issued under, or expressly validated by, that power.

A retrospective statutory amendment conferring power on the State did not validate an earlier sales tax notification issued under the unamended provision. The Court treated the existence of retrospectively created power as distinct from its actual exercise, and held that a notification expressly made under the then-operative section could not be read as one issued under the amended power. In the absence of a specific validating provision, the notification remained invalid, and the assessment order and demand notice founded on it could not stand.

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Issues: Whether the impugned sales tax notification, though supported by later retrospective legislation, remained invalid because it had been issued before the amended charging provision came into force and was not issued in purported exercise of the amended power.

Analysis: The retrospective amendment made by the U.P. Sales Tax (Amendment) Act, 1957 brought section 3A(2) of the U.P. Sales Tax Act, 1948 into force from 31 March 1956, so that the State Government must be treated as having had the power on that date. But the notification itself expressly purported to be issued under section 3A as then in force, and at the time of its issue only the unamended provision operated. The Court distinguished between the existence of power and its actual exercise, holding that a later legal fiction conferring power retrospectively does not convert an earlier notification, issued under the old provision, into one issued under the new provision. The absence of any specific validating provision in the 1957 Act was also treated as fatal.

Conclusion: The notification was not validated, remained invalid, and the assessment order and demand notice founded on it could not stand.

Final Conclusion: The petition succeeded, and the impugned assessment and demand were quashed as having been made on the basis of an invalid notification.

Ratio Decidendi: A retrospective conferment of statutory power does not validate an earlier administrative act unless the act was in fact done, or is expressly validated, in purported exercise of that retrospectively effective power.

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