2014 (9) TMI 576 - SC - Income Tax

Levy of surcharge on tax u/s 113 - Block assessment u/s 158BC - Effective date of proviso appended to Section 113 of the Income Tax Act vide Finance Act, 2002 - Amendment retrospective or prospective - Held that:- the intention of the legislature was to make it prospective in nature. This proviso cannot be treated as declaratory/statutory or curative in nature. - the rate at which the tax is to be imposed is an essential component of tax and where the rate is not stipulated or it cannot be applied with precision, it would be difficult to tax a person. - Decided against the revenue.

At the same time, it is also mandated that there cannot be imposition of any tax without the authority of law. Such a law has to be unambiguous and should prescribe the liability to pay taxes in clear terms. If the concerned provision of the taxing statute is ambiguous and vague and is susceptible to two interpretations, the interpretation which favours the subjects, as against there the revenue, has to be preferred. This is a well established principle of statutory interpretation, to help finding out as to whether particular category of assessee are to pay a particular tax or not. No doubt, with the application of this principle, Courts make endeavour to find out the intention of the legislature. At the same time, this very principle is based on “fairness” doctrine as it lays down that if it is not very clear from the provisions of the Act as to whether the particular tax is to be levied to a particular class of persons or not, the subject should not be fastened with any liability to pay tax. This principle also acts as a balancing factor between the two jurisprudential theories of justice – Libertarian theory on the one hand and Kantian theory along with Egalitarian theory propounded by John Rawls on the other hand.

General Principles concerning retrospectivity - Held that:- The obvious basis of the principle against retrospectivity is the principle of 'fairness’, which must be the basis of every legal rule as was observed in the decision reported in L’Office Cherifien des Phosphates v. Yamashita-Shinnihon Steamship Co.Ltd (1994) 1 AC 486. Thus, legislations which modified accrued rights or which impose obligations or impose new duties or attach a new disability have to be treated as prospective unless the legislative intent is clearly to give the enactment a retrospective effect; unless the legislation is for purpose of supplying an obvious omission in a former legislation or to explain a former legislation. We need not note the cornucopia of case law available on the subject because aforesaid legal position clearly emerges from the various decisions and this legal position was conceded by the counsel for the parties.

For the sake of completeness, that where a benefit is conferred by a legislation, the rule against a retrospective construction is different. If a legislation confers a benefit on some persons but without inflicting a corresponding detriment on some other person or on the public generally, and where to confer such benefit appears to have been the legislators object, then the presumption would be that such a legislation, giving it a purposive construction, would warrant it to be given a retrospective effect. This exactly is the justification to treat procedural provisions as retrospective. In Government of India & Ors. v. Indian Tobacco Association [2005 (8) TMI 113 - SUPREME COURT OF INDIA], the doctrine of fairness was held to be relevant factor to construe a statute conferring a benefit, in the context of it to be given a retrospective operation. - Decided against the revenue.