Retrospective exemption for educational institutions justified refund of additional FAR charges paid under protest.

Educational institutions with income-tax exemption were treated as entitled to refund of additional FAR charges paid under protest after a later notification exempted educational, health-care and social welfare societies from those charges. The exemption was read as beneficial and intended to confer a benefit without affecting vested rights or causing public detriment, so the presumption against retrospectivity was displaced by fairness and parity. Institutions similarly situated to those already granted relief could not be denied the same treatment, and the exemption notification was applied retrospectively with consequential refund of the deposited amounts.

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Issues: Whether educational institutions having income-tax exemption were entitled to refund of additional FAR charges deposited under protest in view of the later notification exempting such bodies from additional FAR charges, and whether that notification operated retrospectively.

Analysis: The notification imposing additional FAR charges was later modified by a subsequent notification exempting educational societies, health-care and social welfare societies having income-tax exemption from such charges. The exemption was intended to confer a benefit without taking away any vested right or imposing any corresponding detriment on the public. In such a setting, the presumption against retrospectivity was displaced by the object of the notification and the doctrine of fairness. The earlier batch of writ petitions had already been disposed of on the basis of the later notification, and the same benefit could not be denied to similarly situated institutions that had deposited the charges under protest.

Conclusion: The institutions were held entitled to refund of the additional FAR charges, and the exemption notification was treated as retrospective in operation.

Final Conclusion: The appeal failed and the connected writ petitions succeeded, with consequential refund of the deposited amounts.

Ratio Decidendi: A beneficial notification that is intended to confer a benefit without affecting vested rights or causing public detriment may be given retrospective effect, especially where fairness and parity require that similarly situated beneficiaries receive the same treatment.

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