Binding tax clarification barred reopening of completed assessment on a mere change of opinion, and the pre-revision notice was quashed.

Binding statutory clarifications under the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act treated the product as an ayurvedic medicine taxable at four per cent, and the earlier assessment had proceeded on that basis. A later pre-revision notice seeking to reclassify the product as confectionary was issued without any new material, change in law, or withdrawal of the existing clarifications. On those facts, the notice was treated as a mere change of opinion contrary to the operative departmental clarification and was held without jurisdiction, with the petitioner's relief granted.

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Issues: Whether the pre-revision notice proposing to classify the product as confectionary and revise the completed assessment was jurisdiction in view of the existing statutory clarifications and prior assessment.

Analysis: The product had already been the subject of statutory clarifications issued under section 28A of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959, treating it as an ayurvedic medicine taxable at four per cent. The same position had been adopted in the earlier assessment, and excess collection above four per cent had been appropriated as penalty under section 22(2) of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959. The later notice relied on an earlier contrary clarification and on a change of view, without showing any new material, change in law, or withdrawal of the favourable clarifications. In these circumstances, the notice was contrary to the binding departmental clarifications and amounted only to a change of opinion.

Conclusion: The impugned notice was held to be without jurisdiction and liable to be set aside, and the relief sought by the petitioner was granted.

Ratio Decidendi: A completed assessment cannot be reopened by a later quasi-judicial authority on the same facts merely by taking a different view when binding statutory clarifications in force support the earlier classification.

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