Final eligibility certificate protects incentive entitlement against coercive tax recovery during its subsistence.

An industrial incentive eligibility certificate issued by the competent State Level Committee was treated as final and conclusive for the claimed benefit. The Commercial Tax Department was not the authority to cancel, modify, or disregard that certificate, and any challenge to the assessee's entitlement, including the product classification, had to be taken before the issuing authority. On that basis, tax demand and coercive recovery could not be pursued through assessment proceedings while the certificate remained subsisting, and the assessee could not be compelled to pay tax on an asserted ineligibility for the incentive.

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Issues: Whether the Commercial Tax Officer could demand and recover sales tax during the subsistence of the final eligibility certificate issued by the State Level Committee, and whether the assessee could be compelled to pay tax when the dispute essentially concerned eligibility for the incentive certificate.

Analysis: The eligibility certificate granted under the industrial incentive scheme was treated as final and conclusive for the benefit claimed. The Commercial Tax Department was not held to be the authority competent to cancel or modify that certificate. A challenge to the assessee's entitlement to the incentive, including the characterisation of the product, lay within the province of the competent authority that issued the certificate, not the assessing authority. In those circumstances, recovery of tax on the footing that the assessee was ineligible for the incentive could not be pursued through coercive assessment proceedings.

Conclusion: The demand and coercive recovery proceedings could not be enforced against the assessee during the subsistence of the final eligibility certificate, and the assessee was protected from payment coercion on that basis.

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