Retrospective tax schedule amendment on cashewnuts controls classification and displaces prior dry fruit treatment.

A retrospective amendment to a tax schedule can redefine the applicable entry for a commodity from the commencement of the principal enactment, displacing any earlier classification. Here, the amendment expressly included cashewnuts within the entry for nuts, so the prior treatment of cashewnuts as dry fruits could not survive. The governing classification therefore became nuts under the amended schedule, with assessment to be made accordingly and excess collection refundable. The key principle is that retrospective statutory inclusion in a schedule controls the tax position for the relevant period and overrides contrary prior classification.

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Issues: Whether cashewnuts were liable to entry tax as dry fruits at 11/2 per cent ad valorem or as nuts at 6 per cent ad valorem in view of the retrospective amendment to the Schedule.

Analysis: The original holding that cashewnuts were dry fruits could not survive once the amending provision substituted the relevant item in the Schedule with retrospective effect and expressly included cashewnuts within nuts. The amendment operated as if cashewnuts had always been covered by the entry for nuts under the principal Act, and the earlier classification adopted by the trial judge became unsustainable to that extent.

Conclusion: Cashewnuts were exigible under the amended entry for nuts, not as dry fruits, and the levy at 6 per cent ad valorem could not stand. The assessment was correctly directed to be made at 11/2 per cent ad valorem with refund of excess collection.

Ratio Decidendi: A retrospective statutory amendment to a tax schedule, which expressly includes a commodity within a specific entry from the commencement of the principal enactment, governs the assessment and displaces any contrary prior classification.

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