1960 (10) TMI 65 - SC - VAT and Sales Tax

Whether the assessee, who is a manufacturer and a dealer of non- edible oils and who elected the previous year as the basis of his assessment in the assessment year 1948-49, is liable to be assessed at the flat rate of 3 pies per rupee on the whole of the turnover of the previous year, or whether he is liable to be assessed at the rate of 3 pies per rupee and 6 pies per rupee on the turnover of the previous year in pro portion to the two periods from 1st April to 8th June, 1948, and from 9th June, 1948, to the 31st March, 1949?

Held that:- Appeal dismissed. The turn over of the previous year is fictionally made the turnover of the year of assessment: it is not the actual or the real turnover of the year of assessment. By the imposition of a different tariff in the course of the year, the incidence of tax liability may competently be altered by the Legislature, but for effectuating that alteration, the Legislature must devise machinery for enforcing it against the taxpayer and if the Legislature has failed to do so, the Court cannot resort to a fiction which is not prescribed by the Legislature and seek to effectuate that alteration by devising machinery not found in the statute. We are therefore of the view that the conclusion of the High Court is correct.