Exemption notification issued mid-year applies to the full assessment year absent express limitation, preventing split tax treatment.

An exemption notification issued during a financial year, where the statute assesses turnover on a yearly basis, was construed as operating for the whole assessment year in the absence of express limiting language. The Court reasoned that restricting the exemption to sales after the date of issue would create an artificial split within the same year and produce unequal tax treatment. The notification therefore applied from the beginning of the relevant financial year, and the tax demand could not be sustained for the covered period.

---

---

Issues: Whether an exemption notification issued during the financial year applies only prospectively from the date of issue or to the entire assessment year.

Analysis: The turnover was assessed on a yearly basis under the Central Sales Tax regime. The notification granted exemption in respect of jaggery sold in the course of inter-State trade where tax had already been levied and collected at the first purchase point under the State sales tax law. No expression in the notification limited its operation to sales made after the date of issue. A construction confining the exemption to the later part of the year would produce an artificial split in the same assessment year and create unequal tax treatment within the year. In the absence of limiting language, the notification was to be read as operating from the beginning of the financial year in which it was issued.

Conclusion: The exemption notification applied to the whole of the assessment year 1970-71 and not merely to the period after 13 July 1970. The revision was therefore liable to fail.

Final Conclusion: The tax demand could not be sustained for the part of the year covered by the notification, and the assessee obtained the benefit of the exemption for the entire year.

Ratio Decidendi: An exemption notification issued during a financial year, in the absence of express limitation, is construed as operating for the whole assessment year so as to avoid anomalous split treatment within that year.

---