TMI Blog1969 (7) TMI 29X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... r to the date of the notification. As the legislature can legislate prospectively as well as retrospectively there can be hardly any justification for saying that the President or the Governor should not be able to make rules in the same manner so as to give them prospective as well as retrospective operation. For these reasons the ambit and content of the rule making power under article 309 can furnish no analogy or parallel to the present case. The High Court was consequently right in coming to the conclusion that the action taken by the Tahsildar in attaching the shares was unsustainable. Appeals dismissed. - C.A. 942 OF 1966 - - - Dated:- 28-7-1969 - Judge(s) : J. C. SHAH., V. RAMASWAMY., A. N. GROVER JUDGMENT The judgment ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d. Consequently, the attachments made by the Tahsildar were quashed. This view was affirmed by a Division Bench in appeal. The Act came into force on first April, 1962. Section 2(44) defined the expression " Tax Recovery Officer" in the following terms: " 'Tax Recovery Officer' means- (i) a Collector; (ii) an Additional Collector or any other officer authorised to exercise the powers of a Collector under any law relating to land revenue for the time being in force in a State; or (iii) any gazetted officer of the Central or a State Government, who may be authorised by the Central Government, by notification in the Official Gazette, to exercise the powers of a Tax Recovery Officer." Section 4 of the Finance Act, 1963, substi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ildar had effected attachment of the shares subsequent to first April, 1962, but prior to August 14, 1963. In other words, on the date on which he had effected attachment, he was not a Tax Recovery Officer but he got the powers of a Tax Recovery Officer by virtue of the notification dated August 14, 1963. The short question for determination, therefore, was and is whether the State Government could invest the Tahsildar with the powers of a Tax Recovery Officer under the aforesaid provisions of the Act with effect from a date prior to the date of the notification, i. e., retroactively or retrospectively. Now it is open to a sovereign legislature to enact laws which have retrospective operation. Even when Parliament enacts retrospective la ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... issioner of Sales Tax; India Sugars Refineries, Ltd. v. State of Mysore and General S. Shivdev Singh v. State of Punjab). It can hardly be said that the impugned notification promulgates any rule, regulation or bye-law all of which have a definite signification. The exercise of the power under sub-clause (ii) of clause (44) of section 2 of the Act is more of an executive than a legislative act. It becomes, therefore, all the more necessary to consider how such an act which has retrospective operation can be valid in the absence of any power conferred by the aforesaid provision to so perform it as to give it retrospective operation. In Strawboard Manufacturing Co. Ltd. v. Gutta Mill Workers' Union an industrial dispute had been referred b ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ond its legitimate field and the aforesaid words occurring in section 4 of the Finance Act, 1963, could not be construed to embody conferment of a power for a retrospective authorisation by the State in the absence of any express provision in section 2 (44) of the Act itself. It may be noticed that in a recent decision of the Constitution Bench of this court in B. S. Vadera v. Union of India it has been observed with reference to rules framed under the proviso to article 309 of the Constitution that these rules can be made with retrospective operation. This view was, however, expressed owing to the language employed in the proviso to article 309 that "any rules so made shall have effect subject to the provisions of any such Act". As has bee ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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