Eligibility certificate benchmark cannot be altered by the assessing authority; deferral demand based on a revised base year failed.

An assessing authority cannot alter the benchmark year or substitute fresh base production and sales figures fixed in an eligibility certificate for interest-free sales tax deferral. The governing policy required the base production and base sales volume to be determined and incorporated when the certificate was issued, and once issued and acted upon, that benchmark could be changed only by the authority that granted the certificate. The assessment demand based on assessment year 1995-96 was therefore unsustainable, and the original benchmark in the eligibility certificate had to be applied.

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Issues: Whether the assessing authority could alter the benchmark year and base production and sales figures fixed in the eligibility certificate for availing interest-free sales tax deferral.

Analysis: The eligibility certificate specifically fixed assessment year 1994-95 as the benchmark and prescribed the corresponding production and sales figures for the petitioner to maintain for availing deferral benefit. The governing policy required the base production and base sales volume to be worked out and incorporated in the eligibility certificate at the time of issue. Once that certificate had been issued and acted upon, the assessing authority had no jurisdiction to substitute a different assessment year as the base year. The power to amend or alter the benchmark lay with the authority that granted the eligibility certificate, not with the assessing officer.

Conclusion: The assessing authority could not change the benchmark fixed in the eligibility certificate, and the demand based on assessment year 1995-96 was unsustainable.

Final Conclusion: The writ petitions succeeded and the impugned tax demand was quashed, with the petitioner entitled to have the eligibility certificate benchmark applied as originally fixed.

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