Entertainment tax defaults attract weekly penalty without mens rea, while honoured advance cheques may avoid liability for delayed encashment.

Failure to pay entertainment tax within the prescribed weekly period attracted penalty for each default under the Act, and mens rea was not required for such contravention. Timely advance cheques that were honoured could not be treated as penal defaults merely because encashment occurred later, but post-dated or dishonoured cheques did not excuse liability. A notification could not validly create a new offence beyond the Act; a wrong statutory citation in the notification was treated as a printing mistake and did not extinguish substantive liability under the penal scheme.

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Issues: (i) Whether the condition in the notification treating non-payment of entertainment tax as an offence under a wrong provision was ultra vires, and whether it could be ignored while examining liability under the Act. (ii) Whether failure to pay entertainment tax weekly under the return system attracted penalty for each week, and whether penalty could be avoided where cheques were given in advance and honoured.

Issue (i): Whether the condition in the notification treating non-payment of entertainment tax as an offence under a wrong provision was ultra vires, and whether it could be ignored while examining liability under the Act.

Analysis: The concession under section 6(3) permitted payment of tax under prescribed conditions, but it did not authorise the State Government to create a new offence. The reference in the notification to section 10(3)(c) was treated as a printing mistake, since the Act itself contained a penal provision for failure to pay tax due. The impugned condition was therefore not accepted as creating a new offence, and liability had to be examined under the charging and penalty scheme of the Act.

Conclusion: The notification did not validly create an offence, but the defect in citation did not extinguish liability under the substantive penal provision.

Issue (ii): Whether failure to pay entertainment tax weekly under the return system attracted penalty for each week, and whether penalty could be avoided where cheques were given in advance and honoured.

Analysis: Under the Act, tax payable under section 6(3) was tax due, and non-payment within the prescribed weekly time amounted to contravention attracting penalty under section 10(3)(b)(i). Mens rea was held to be unnecessary for such failure to pay tax. The expression "fails to pay the tax due" was construed to apply to each weekly default, so the penalty could be levied for each week. At the same time, where cheques had in fact been issued in advance of the due date and honoured, the delay in encashment could not be penalised; if the cheques were post-dated or dishonoured, the assessee remained liable.

Conclusion: Weekly defaults were independently punishable, but no penalty was sustainable for delays attributable only to timely advance cheques that were honoured.

Final Conclusion: The petitions succeeded only in part: the assessee remained liable for penalty on weekly defaults in payment, subject to exclusion of cases where timely advance cheques had been accepted and realised.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a statute permits payment of tax under prescribed conditions, failure to pay within the prescribed time can attract penalty for each default period without proof of mens rea, but an administrative notification cannot itself create a new offence beyond the Act.

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