M.P. MENON, J.

These are cases where exaction of penal interest under section 23(3) of the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, 1963, is being challenged. Some of them relate to demands for penal interest made before 16th September, 1980, when alone sub-sections (4) to (6) were added to the section by the amending Act 19 of 1980. One of the contentions is that the provisions of section 23(3), as they stood before the aforesaid amendment, were invalid. Another contention is that no penal interest could be claimed at all, for non-payment of amounts due under provisional assessments, once final assessments are made; it is said that the provisional should be deemed to have merged with the final. There is also an attack against section 23(3), as it now stands. We are however of the view that instead of examining these questions in the abstract, the cases in this batch can be disposed of on their facts, particularly in the light of a circumstance to which it is convenient to immediately advert.

2. The law is that the liability to pay penal interest attaches automatically to the demand for tax, when default occurs in payment thereof, however erroneous the assessment be, and whether it i