Validating tax amendments can sustain prior assessments, while refund relief may still require fresh factual inquiry into tax collection.

A validating amendment can preserve earlier tax assessments despite prior infirmities, so a challenge to those assessments will fail where the validating provision is not itself assailed. The amended statutory scheme may still leave room for refund or exemption relief if tax was paid without legal liability, but entitlement depends on the factual question whether the dealer had collected the tax. Where that factual basis is disputed and not conclusively established, the refund rejection cannot stand on the assessing officer's sole ground and the claim must be reconsidered after giving the assessee an opportunity to prove the relevant facts.

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Issues: (i) whether the assessments made for the relevant years could be annulled in view of the validating provisions of the amending statute; (ii) whether the refund claim was barred or could still be examined under the exemption provision, and whether the refund application had to be reconsidered on the factual question whether tax had been collected.

Issue (i): Whether the assessments could be annulled in view of the validating provisions.

Analysis: The assessments had been protected by the validating provision in the amending statute. The challenge to the assessments was not sustainable once the validating section had operated, and the assessee did not assail the validity of that section. The legal effect of the amendment was to sustain the earlier assessments notwithstanding the prior infirmity alleged against them.

Conclusion: The challenge to the assessments failed and the prayer for quashing them was rejected.

Issue (ii): Whether the refund claim could still be examined and whether the refund application had to be reconsidered on the factual question whether tax had been collected.

Analysis: The exemption provision in the amending statute could operate to extinguish liability in specified cases, and if tax had been paid without legal liability, refund could be maintainable. However, entitlement to refund depended on the factual position whether the dealer had collected the tax. That question was disputed and could not be conclusively resolved in the writ proceeding. The assessing officer's sole ground for rejecting refund was unsustainable, and the assessee had to be given an opportunity to establish the facts relevant to the statutory exemption and refund claim.

Conclusion: The refund rejection order was quashed and the refund application was directed to be reconsidered after giving the assessee an opportunity to prove its case on facts.

Final Conclusion: The assessments remained undisturbed, but the refund matter was sent back for fresh decision in accordance with the amended statutory scheme after factual inquiry.

Ratio Decidendi: A validating tax amendment may sustain earlier assessments, yet a refund claim remains open where the statute grants exemption or refund relief and the decisive factual conditions, including whether tax was collected, require fresh determination.

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