Rectification for apparent mistake fails where exemption depends on fresh factual inquiry under retrospective sales tax amendment.

Rule 38 rectification was confined to mistakes apparent from the record, and a debatable issue or one needing fresh factual enquiry could not be reopened. After the retrospective insertion of section 6(1A) in the Central Sales Tax regime, section 10 of the Amendment Act still exempted certain inter-State sales during the specified period where no tax had been collected. Because entitlement to that exemption depended on an unexamined factual question about tax collection, it could not be determined in rectification proceedings. The retrospective deeming provision did not, by itself, make the original assessment a record-based mistake once the exemption scheme was also part of the statute.

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Issues: Whether the rectification of the assessment under rule 38 could be sustained on the ground of a mistake apparent on the record after the retrospective amendment of the Central Sales Tax law.

Analysis: Rule 38 permitted rectification only of a mistake apparent from the record. A debatable question or one requiring investigation of fresh facts could not be corrected in rectification proceedings. Although section 3 of the Central Sales Tax (Amendment) Act, 1969 inserted section 6(1A) retrospectively, section 10 of the Amendment Act created an exemption for inter-State sales during the specified period if no tax had been collected. Whether that exemption applied depended on a factual enquiry into tax collection, which had never been examined in the original assessment and could not be investigated in rectification proceedings. The retrospective deeming provision under section 6(1A) did not by itself make the assessment order a mistake apparent on the record once section 10 was also part of the statutory scheme.

Conclusion: The rectification order could not be sustained insofar as it sought to bring the exempted turnover to tax on the basis of a mistake apparent on the record.

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