Retrospective effect of legislation

Definitive scheme has been established under section 6(1) of Sales Tax Act, 1990 as it aligns charge and payment of import-stage sales tax with customs duty, and incorporates collection, enforcement and recovery machinery provided under the Customs Act, 1969 as the sole operative channel in absence of any parallel provision in Sales Tax Act, 1990 itself

Various Finance Act amendments made to Customs Act, 1969 and Sales Tax Act, 1990 operate to designate Customs as the forum for recovery, and thus are purely procedural in nature

Such amendments do not create any new liability, nor do they curtail any substantive defence available to taxpayer but merely regulate procedural channel through which existing obligation is to be enforced

As the amendments do not affect any vested right, such provisions apply retrospectively unless expressly excluded.

Although the power of the legislature to enact retrospective law is well-recognized, but it is equally well settled that in the absence of any express provision or necessary implication even the laws which have been made retrospectively applicable can neither be applied to the transactions which are past and closed nor can vested rights be taken away or destroyed.

Statute, which is procedural in nature, can operate retrospectively unless it affects an existing right on the date of promulgation or causes injustice or prejudice to a substantive right

If it is of such a character that will tend to promote justice without any consequential embarrassment or detriment to any of the parties concerned, the Courts would favourably incline towards giving effect to such procedural statutes retrospectively

If existing rights are affected or the giving of retrospective operation causes inconvenience or injustice, then the Courts will not even in the case of procedural statute favour an interpretation giving retrospective effect to the statute.

Beneficial legislation was a statute which purported to confer a benefit on individuals or a class of persons by relieving them of onerous obligations under contracts entered into by them or which tend to protect persons against oppressive acts from individuals with whom they stood in certain relations

Curative statutes were those which attempted to correct errors in proceedings particularly which sought to give effect to contracts and other transactions between private persons which otherwise would fail to produce their intended consequences on account of some statutory disability or a failure to comply with some technical requirements

Remedial statutes, on the other hand, were enacted to improve a prior enactment for some of its defects or to reform existing law to meet new situations covered by the enactment

Remedial legislation was made to supply such defects and abridge such superfluities in the Common Law as arose, either from the general imperfection of all human laws, from change of time and circumstances, from the mistake and unadvised determinations of unlearned (and even learned) Judges, or from any other cause whatever

While retroactive legislation is looked upon with disfavour, however, beneficial enactments were to be given liberal construction and retrospective effect if same were curative or remedial

In absence of express words to the contrary, remedial and curative enactments were not ordinarily construed to destroy vested rights, create new liabilities and obligations or disturb past and closed transaction.

Retroactive legislation was looked upon with disfavour, as a general rule, and properly so because of its tendency to be unjust and oppressive

In the absence of any indication in the statute that the Legislature intended for it to operate retroactively, it must not be given retrospective effect

Where a statute however, was procedural, declaratory or explanatory or where a statute was passed for the purpose of supply an obvious omission in a former statute, it was to operative retrospectively obviously because it did not affect vested rights.

Retroactive legislation was looked upon with disfavour, as a general rule, and properly so because of its tendency to be unjust and oppressive

In the absence of any indication in the statute that the Legislature intended for it to operate retroactively, it must not be given retrospective effect

Where a statute however, was procedural, declaratory or explanatory or where a statute was passed for the purpose of supplying an obvious omission in a former statute, it was to operate retrospectively obviously because it did not affect vested rights.

Retroactive legislation was looked upon with disfavour, as a general rule, and properly so because of its tendency to be unjust and oppressive

In the absence of any indication in the statute that the Legislature intended for it to operate retroactively, it must not be given retrospective effect

Where a statute however, was procedural, declaratory or explanatory or where a statute was passed for the purpose of supplying an obvious omission in a former statute, it was to operate retrospectively obviously because it did not affect vested rights.