Validating legislation can retrospectively cure defective notifications and sustain market fee levies despite earlier adverse rulings.

The Bihar Agricultural Produce Markets (Validation) Act, 1982 was enacted to cure the defect caused by non-publication of the relevant notifications by deeming those notifications valid and effective and by protecting market fees levied, collected, or to be levied and collected despite that defect. The validating legislation did not formally annul the earlier High Court judgments, but it removed the legal basis on which they rested. Once that foundation disappeared, the statute operated retrospectively to sustain the notifications and the associated levies and collections, and the market fee demands were treated as valid under the validating law.

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Issues: Whether the Bihar Agricultural Produce Markets (Validation) Act, 1982 cured the defect arising from non-publication of the relevant notifications and validated the market fees levied, collected, or to be levied and collected notwithstanding earlier judicial decisions.

Analysis: The Validation Act removed the defect of non-publication by deeming the notifications to be valid and effective and by declaring that market fee levied or collected would not be invalid merely because of such non-publication. The earlier judgments of the High Court were not directly annulled, but their foundation was removed by the validating legislation. Once the basis of the earlier decisions stood knocked off, the validating Act operated to sustain the levies and collections.

Conclusion: The validation statute was effective to uphold the market fees and the impugned High Court order could not stand.

Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded and the levy and collection of market fees were restored as valid under the validating legislation.

Ratio Decidendi: A validating statute can retrospectively cure the defect underlying earlier adverse judgments by removing the legal basis of those decisions and deeming the affected notifications and levies to have been valid.

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