TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1966 (6) TMI 8
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....tur District Co-operative Marketing Society Ltd., having its registered office at Guntur. The principal business of the society is the distribution of chemical fertilisers to various co-operative societies in that district. The petitioner had been paying the sales tax under the provisions of the Madras General Sales Tax Act, 1939, and the Rules framed thereunder, in respect of the sales conducted by him in favour of the various co-operative societies. While so, the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax (Amendment) Act, 1963, was passed and received the assent of the President on 22nd September, 1963, and was published in the said Gazette on 26th September, 1963. It is contended, that under section 5-A of the Amendment Act, the petitioner s....
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....eptember, 1963. In support of this contention, reliance was placed on Maxwell on the Interpretation of Statutes (Tenth Edition), page 409, and Halsbury's Laws of England (3rd Edition), Volume 36, at page 420, foot-note 'm'. Section 1 of the Amending Act states that the Act shall come into force on the 1st August, 1963. It Is not known as to when actually the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council passed the Amending Bill. If these Houses passed the Bill subsequent to 1st August, 1963, it is conceded that the contention raised before me will have no foundation. Assuming however that the Bill was passed by both the Houses before 1st August, 1963, I do not think it helps in any manner the position as to when the Amending Act, afte....
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....ny Act to come into force, the Act would be deemed to have come into force on that date. It is only in case where the Legislature does not prescribe any date for the commencement of the Act that section 5 lays down that the Act shall come into force only on the date when it receives the assent of the Governor or the President and is published in the Official Gazette. In this case, when the Amending Act gives a date as to when the Bill comes into force, the other alternative does not arise. It is true that the following observation appears at page 409 in Interpretation of Statutes by Maxwell (10th Edition): "But where a particular day is named for its commencement, but the Royal assent is not given until a later day, the Act would come in....
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....ry's Laws of England (Volume 36), at page 423. is pertinent: "In general, however, the Courts regard as retrospective any statute which operates on cases or facts coming into existence before its commencement in the sense that it affects even If for the future only, the character or consequences of transactions previously entered into or of other past conduct." Although the assent was received on 22nd September, 1963, the Act came into force only on 1st August, 1963, and to that extent, it is manifestly clear from section 1(2) that it is made retrospective. It is not disputed that the State Legislature was competent to amend the General Sales Tax Act in the manner in which it did. What must follow from it is that it was competent to e....