Saving provision in transferred appeals did not import enhancement power, so prejudicial assessment increase was beyond jurisdiction.

A saving provision transferring pending appeals to a new appellate forum did not carry over the repealed authority's power to enhance an assessment unless that power was expressly preserved. The old appellate scheme confined enhancement to separate revisional jurisdiction, and the new enactment vested appellate and revisional powers in different authorities. The court held that the assessee's vested protection against prejudicial enhancement in appeal could not be defeated by implication. The Appellate Assistant Commissioner therefore lacked jurisdiction to enhance the assessment in the transferred appeal, and the enhancement order was invalid.

---

---

Issues: Whether the Appellate Assistant Commissioner had jurisdiction, under the new sales tax enactment and the saving provision transferring pending appeals, to enhance the assessee's assessment made under the repealed Act.

Analysis: Under the old Act, the appellate authority's power was confined to the assessee's appeal against the assessment and did not include a power to make prejudicial enhancement in that appeal; any power to enhance existed only under the separate revisional jurisdiction. Under the new Act, the Appellate Assistant Commissioner was the appellate authority and the revisional authority was the Deputy Commissioner, and the statute expressly conferred enhancement power in the appellate field only to the extent provided by the new enactment. The saving provision transferring pending appeals to the new appellate forum created only a limited fiction for disposal of those appeals and did not carry over the extinct tribunal's broader powers or deprive the assessee of the vested right against enhancement in appeal.

Conclusion: The Appellate Assistant Commissioner had no jurisdiction to enhance the assessment in the pending appeal, and the enhancement order was invalid.

Final Conclusion: The assessee's assessment could not be prejudicially increased by the appellate authority in the transferred appeal, so the challenge to the enhancement failed and the original assessment stood restored.

Ratio Decidendi: A saving or transfer provision that shifts pending appeals to a new appellate authority does not, by itself, import the repealed authority's powers of enhancement; such prejudicial power must be expressly conferred, and a vested right against enhancement in appeal cannot be defeated by implication.

---