Official Gazette publication controls when a fiscal withdrawal notification takes effect; duty collected before public availability was refundable.

A subordinate fiscal notification requiring publication in the Official Gazette takes effect only when it is made reasonably available through the recognised official channel; mere printing is insufficient. Applying that principle, the Bombay HC held that the excise exemption withdrawal became effective only when the Gazette was available for sale on 8 December 1982, not on the earlier date of printing. Duty recovered before that date was therefore collected under a notification not yet effectively published and had to be refunded for the intervening period; recoveries from 8 December 1982 onwards were valid.

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Issues: Whether the withdrawal of the excise exemption became effective on the date of its Gazette publication or only when the Gazette was made available to the public, and whether duty recovered for the intervening period was refundable.

Analysis: The notification withdrawing the exemption was issued under the rule and the parent Act requiring publication in the Official Gazette. Publication was held to mean more than mere printing; subordinate legislation takes effect when it is published or promulgated in a manner that makes it reasonably available to those governed by it. On the facts, the Gazette containing the withdrawal notification was available for sale only from 8 December 1982, so recoveries made before that date were based on a notification not yet effectively published for the affected trade. Recoveries from 8 December 1982 onwards were valid because the notification had then become available through the recognised official channel.

Conclusion: The petitioners were entitled to refund of excess duty recovered for the period from 30 November 1982 to 7 December 1982, and the challenge succeeded only to that limited extent.

Ratio Decidendi: A subordinate fiscal notification required to be published in the Official Gazette takes effect only when it is made available through the recognised official channel so as to give reasonable public notice; mere printing is not enough.

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