Vested revision rights under sales tax law cannot be curtailed by a later prepayment condition without clear retrospective intent.

An amendment imposing prepayment of the full assessed tax could not defeat a revision right arising from assessment proceedings already commenced under the unamended law. The majority treated the dealer's ability to move revision under section 12(2) of the Madhya Bharat Sales Tax Act, 1950, as part of the existing remedial framework attached to the assessment, and held that a later proviso creating a new condition precedent could not apply unless retrospective intent was clearly expressed or necessarily implied. The revision petition therefore remained governed by the unamended provision, and prepayment could not be insisted upon.

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Issues: Whether the assessee's right to move the Commissioner in revision under section 12(2) of the Madhya Bharat Sales Tax Act, 1950, was a vested right attached to the assessment proceedings and whether the later amendment requiring prepayment of the full assessed tax could be applied to a revision petition arising from an assessment initiated before the amendment.

Analysis: The statutory scheme distinguished appeal under section 11 from revision under section 12, but the Court treated the dealer's ability to invoke revision as part of the remedial framework available to challenge an assessment. The majority held that once assessment proceedings had commenced, the assessee acquired a vested right to seek revision under the unamended law, and that right could not be curtailed by a subsequent amendment imposing an additional condition of prepayment unless the amendment clearly operated retrospectively. The later proviso was viewed as imposing a new and onerous burden affecting the existing remedial right. The dissenting view regarded revision as a discretionary power of the Commissioner and not a vested right of the assessee.

Conclusion: The assessee's revision petition was governed by the unamended section 12(2), and the Commissioner could not refuse to entertain it for want of prepayment of the full assessed tax. The answer was in favour of the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: A statutory amendment imposing a new condition precedent on the exercise of an existing remedial right cannot apply to pending assessment proceedings unless retrospective intent is clearly expressed or necessarily implied.

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