Industrial tax exemption notifications: tax collected and remitted during the exemption period need not reduce eligibility absent express wording.

An industrial tax exemption notification granting relief to new small-scale units was construed as a concession for a fixed period and monetary ceiling, not as a scheme that automatically reduces eligibility because tax was collected and remitted during the exemption period. The operative principle was that tax collected and paid over to Government need not be deducted from the total exemption entitlement unless the notification expressly requires such deduction. The notification was read consistently with the exemption period and ceiling conditions, and with the Board's clarification that remitted tax was not to be excluded from the eligibility computation where the statutory limits were otherwise satisfied.

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Issues: Whether, under S.R.O. No. 968 of 1980 granting exemption to new small-scale industrial units, the tax collected and remitted by the assessee during the exemption period had to be adjusted against the eligible quantum of sales tax exemption or whether such amounts could be excluded from the computation of the exemption benefit.

Analysis: The exemption notification granted relief on the tax payable on the turnover of goods sold by eligible new industrial units, subject to the conditions that any tax collected should be remitted to Government and any tax already paid should not be refunded. The Court read the notification as conferring a tax concession for a fixed period and monetary ceiling, not as denying the benefit of exemption merely because the assessee had collected and paid over tax during the exemption period. The notification was understood to permit adjustment only against the actual tax benefit derived by the assessee during the exemption period. Support was drawn from the earlier judicial understanding of the exemption scheme and from the Board's circular clarifying that tax collected and remitted was not to be deducted from the total eligibility where the period and monetary limits were otherwise satisfied.

Conclusion: The notification did not contemplate deduction of tax collected and remitted from the total exemption entitlement, and the assessing authority was justified in giving credit for such amounts. The revision was decided against the Revenue and in favour of the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: Under an industrial tax exemption notification granting a concession for a defined period and monetary limit, tax collected and remitted during the exemption period does not reduce the assessee's exemption entitlement unless the notification expressly so provides.

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