Tax payment interval notification upheld as a valid machinery measure aimed at preventing evasion.

A notification issued under the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1954 was upheld as a valid machinery provision regulating only the interval for payment of tax. The amended schedule was read with the original notification and was held not to convert registered dealers into casual dealers or import the full liability under section 10A. The State's power to prescribe shorter, even nil or immediate, payment intervals was treated as consistent with the statute where tax liability had already arisen on sale. The measure was also found to have a sufficient nexus with preventing tax evasion, and alleged misuse in individual cases did not invalidate the notification itself.

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Issues: Whether the notification amending the schedule under sub-section (2A) of section 7 of the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1954 was ultra vires or invalid because it allegedly converted registered dealers into casual dealers, delegated impermissible power, lacked nexus with prevention of tax evasion, or permitted collection of tax on an improper basis.

Analysis: The amendment was read with the original notification and was held to regulate only the intervals for payment of tax. Reference to section 10A in the amended schedule was confined to the timing of payment and did not import the whole of section 10A or fasten on registered dealers the liabilities applicable to casual dealers. Sub-section (2A) of section 7 empowered the State Government to require payment at intervals shorter than those prescribed under sub-section (1), and that power could validly be used to prescribe a nil or immediate interval where the liability to tax had already arisen on completion of the sale. The notification was also treated as a workable machinery provision intended to facilitate collection and prevent evasion, not as an unlawful delegation of the assessing authority's functions. Any alleged misuse in individual cases did not invalidate the notification itself, and the measure was found to have a sufficient nexus with prevention of tax evasion.

Conclusion: The notification was upheld as valid; the challenge failed and the objections based on alleged conversion into casual dealer liability, delegation, absence of interval, misuse, and lack of nexus were rejected.

Final Conclusion: The writ petition was dismissed because the impugned notification was within the statutory power conferred by the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1954 and operated only as a permissible mode of tax collection and timing.

Ratio Decidendi: A notification issued under a power to prescribe shorter intervals for tax payment may validly regulate the time of payment without importing the whole substantive regime of another provision, and such a machinery measure will be sustained if it is directed to preventing tax evasion and remains workable within the parent statute.

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