Retrospective validating amendment sustains entry tax on PVC cloth by curing defective notification-making power.

The retrospective validating amendment was upheld as curing the earlier lack of express power to issue a retrospective notification, because the legislative scheme clearly intended to validate notifications made during the interregnum. On that basis, the notification substituting the textile entry, including fabrics coated with or impregnated with PVC, remained enforceable and sustained entry tax liability on PVC cloth. The court treated the amendment as effective to remove the defect identified in earlier decisions and to bring the goods within the expanded textile entry. The writ petitions therefore failed.

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Issues: Whether the notification substituting the relevant entry for textiles, including fabrics coated with or impregnated with PVC, and made retrospective by subsequent legislation, was valid and enforceable so as to sustain entry tax liability on PVC cloth.

Analysis: The charging provision permitted the State Government to specify rates by notification, and the legislature later amended the statute to confer retrospective as well as prospective notification-making power. The earlier objection that the notification could not be issued retrospectively under the unamended provision was addressed by the retrospective operation of the amending Act, which was intended to validate notifications issued during the interregnum after the ordinance and before formal enactment. The legislative scheme showed a clear intent to remove the defect noticed in earlier decisions and to sustain the levy on PVC cloth within the expanded textile entry.

Conclusion: The notification and the retrospective legislative amendment were held valid, and PVC cloth remained liable to entry tax.

Final Conclusion: The writ petitions failed because the retrospective statutory amendment validated the notification and supported the levy on the goods in question.

Ratio Decidendi: A retrospective validating amendment may cure the lack of express retrospective notification-making power and sustain notifications issued in the interregnum, provided the legislative intent to validate is clear.

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