Charging provision required for tax interest and penalty; writ challenge to the additional sales tax levy was maintainable.

A writ petition challenging levy of interest and penalty under the Tamil Nadu Additional Sales Tax Act, 1970 was maintainable because the availability of statutory appeal or revision did not bar Article 226 review where the levy was alleged to lack authority of law. On the merits, interest and penalty for the relevant assessment year could not be sustained because the Act then contained no substantive charging provision authorising such levies. Machinery provisions imported from the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959 could not create a liability absent in the special statute, and a validating amendment could not cure that defect for the relevant period. The demand was therefore set aside.

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Issues: (i) whether a writ petition challenging levy of interest and penalty under the additional sales tax enactment was maintainable notwithstanding availability of statutory remedies, and (ii) whether, for the relevant assessment year, interest and penalty could validly be levied on additional sales tax in the absence of a substantive charging provision under the Tamil Nadu Additional Sales Tax Act, 1970.

Issue (i): whether a writ petition challenging levy of interest and penalty under the additional sales tax enactment was maintainable notwithstanding availability of statutory remedies

Analysis: The limitation prescribed for statutory appeals or revisions does not govern the exercise of writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. A challenge to the very jurisdiction of the taxing authority, especially where the levy is alleged to lack authority of law under Article 265 of the Constitution of India, can be examined in writ proceedings despite the availability of an alternative remedy.

Conclusion: The writ petition was maintainable.

Issue (ii): whether, for the relevant assessment year, interest and penalty could validly be levied on additional sales tax in the absence of a substantive charging provision under the Tamil Nadu Additional Sales Tax Act, 1970

Analysis: The relevant provisions of the Tamil Nadu Additional Sales Tax Act, 1970 showed that, for the assessment year in question, there was no substantive provision authorising levy of interest on belated payment of additional sales tax, and no charging provision enabling levy of penalty. The incorporation of machinery provisions from the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959 could not be treated as a source of power to create a liability that the special enactment itself did not impose. A validating amendment could not cure the absence of a charging provision for the relevant period.

Conclusion: Interest and penalty on additional sales tax for the relevant assessment year could not be sustained.

Final Conclusion: The demand of interest and penalty on additional sales tax was set aside, and the petitioner obtained relief on the substantive tax issue, while the separate settlement-scheme challenge did not require further adjudication.

Ratio Decidendi: A levy of tax, interest, or penalty must rest on an express substantive charging provision in the governing taxing statute, and machinery or allied provisions from another enactment cannot supply that missing authority.

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