Previous publication and legislative approval were both mandatory for sales tax rules; later validation could not extend beyond one assessment year.

Rules 15 and 16 of the Madras General Sales Tax (Turnover and Assessment) Rules, 1939 required compliance with both previous publication under section 19(4) and Legislative Assembly approval under section 3(4); the court treated these conditions as cumulative and held that approval alone did not cure the defect. Gazette publication did not create conclusive validity under section 7(e) of the General Clauses Act, 1891, because the rule-making process had not in fact followed the previous-publication procedure. Section 9 of the 1957 Amendment Act validated the rules only for assessment year 1955-56 and could not be extended to later years.

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Issues: (i) Whether rules 15 and 16 of the Madras General Sales Tax (Turnover and Assessment) Rules, 1939, as amended in September 1955, were invalid for want of compliance with the requirement of previous publication under section 19(4) of the Madras General Sales Tax Act, 1939, notwithstanding approval by the Legislative Assembly under section 3(4); (ii) whether section 7(e) of the General Clauses Act, 1891, conferred conclusive validity on the published rules; and (iii) whether section 9 of the Madras General Sales Tax, Sales of Motor Sprit Taxation and Entertainments Tax (Amendment) Act, 1957, validated the impugned rules for assessment years beyond 1955-56.

Issue (i): Whether rules 15 and 16 of the Madras General Sales Tax (Turnover and Assessment) Rules, 1939, as amended in September 1955, were invalid for want of compliance with the requirement of previous publication under section 19(4) of the Madras General Sales Tax Act, 1939, notwithstanding approval by the Legislative Assembly under section 3(4).

Analysis: Section 3(4) required turnover to be determined by prescribed rules and also required Legislative Assembly approval. Section 19 was the general rule-making provision, and section 19(4) imposed an additional mandatory condition that rules be made after previous publication for not less than four weeks. The Court held that the reference in section 3(4) to rules 'as may be prescribed' was not a self-contained special code excluding section 19; rather, rules made under section 3(4) were still rules under section 19 and had to satisfy both the publication requirement and Assembly approval. The earlier binding decision in Rangaswami Chettiar and the Full Bench view of the Andhra Pradesh High Court supported this construction.

Conclusion: The impugned rules were not validly made because the requirement of previous publication under section 19(4) had not been complied with, and they were therefore invalid in relation to the assessees.

Issue (ii): Whether section 7(e) of the General Clauses Act, 1891, conferred conclusive validity on the published rules.

Analysis: Section 7(e) makes Gazette publication of a rule purporting to have been made after previous publication conclusive proof that the rule was duly made. That presumption operates only where the rule is in fact made in purported exercise of the relevant power and the statutory procedure is invoked. Here the Government had proceeded on the footing that compliance with section 19(4) was unnecessary and had not intended to invoke the previous-publication machinery. In those circumstances, the statutory presumption could not be used to cure the defect in the making of the rules.

Conclusion: The publication in the Gazette did not validate the rules or bar inquiry into non-compliance with section 19(4).

Issue (iii): Whether section 9 of the Madras General Sales Tax, Sales of Motor Sprit Taxation and Entertainments Tax (Amendment) Act, 1957, validated the impugned rules for assessment years beyond 1955-56.

Analysis: Section 9 validated assessments, collections, and licence fees for the year 1955-56 notwithstanding the retrospective operation of the amendments. The Court held that the section was expressly confined to that assessment year and could not be extended by interpretation to validate the rules generally for later years. The language used did not amount to a broader statutory confirmation of the rules for subsequent assessment years, and to read it so would be legislation rather than interpretation.

Conclusion: Section 9 validated the rules only for assessment year 1955-56 and did not save the assessments for the later years in question.

Final Conclusion: The impugned amendments could not sustain the challenged assessments for the relevant later assessment years, and the writ petitions succeeded.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a statute requires both previous publication and legislative approval for prescribed rules, compliance with both conditions is mandatory, and a validating provision confined to a specific assessment year cannot be enlarged by interpretation to cover later years.

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