The only three points for determination in this case are whether in a prosecution under section 15(b) of the Madras General Sales Tax Act, the validity of the assessment can be questioned by a party or gone into by a Criminal Court in any prosecution or other proceeding before it, (1) where the turnover on which the person is assessed relates wholly to the period before 1st January, 1948, and the assessment is made before 1st January, 1948, but the prosecution is instituted after 1st January, 1948, when the new section 16-A came into force; (2) when the assessment is made after 1st January, 1948, as in this case, but a portion of the turnover on which the assessment is based relates to the period before 1st January, 1948; and (3) where the turnover, assessment and prosecution are all after 1st January, 1948.

I shall take the last case first. I agree with the learned Public Prosecutor that, as section 16-A stands, the validity (including therein both the legality and the quantum) of the assessment cannot be questioned in any Criminal Court by a party, or even gone into by the Court itself, in any prosecution or proceeding, if the assessment, turnover and the prosecution are all after 1st January, 1948.

I am not impressed with the argument of Mr. Gopalaswami Aiyangar, for the petitioner, that section 16-A is a penal and fiscal enactment, and that the liberty and property of the subjects ought not to be endangered in a criminal case by such reckless provisions like section 16-A, which are, according to him, ultra vires. He urged vehemently that accused persons will be bound hand and foot and handed over to the Criminal Courts, like sacrificial sheep, to be automatically sentenced, if the learned Public Prosecutor’s argument is accepted. I cannot agree. Whatever the reasonableness or otherwise of a provision like the new section 16-A, I am satisfied that it is well within the powers of the Legislature and is not ultra vires. Nor does Mr. Gopalaswami Aiyangar’s appeal to the liberties given to an accused, under the Criminal Procedure Code, at a trial, impress me. The Criminal Procedure Code, of course, says nothing regarding the quantum or quality of proof of the validity of the assessments in cases under the General Sales Tax Act, as, when it was framed, this Act was unknown and uncontemplated. It requires the prosecution, no doubt, to prove its case. But section 16-A makes an assessment on a turnover after 1st January, 1948, itself conclusive proof that such assessment is valid, something like the conclusive presumption regarding the legitimacy of children born in wedlock under section 112 of the Indian Evidence Act when there is access. The usual rule of interpretation in such cases is that a special law regulating a special thing will take precedence over the general provisions of common or statute law, unless the special law is itself invalid, or ultra vires. General and roaming arguments based on general principles, like penal provision and fiscal provision, cannot be of much weight when the Legislature, after a full discussion, has passed an enactment like section 16-A affecting the property of the subject and his liberty also in case he defaults. So, before an enactment of the Legislature, like section 16-A, is held to be ultra vires there must be full proof that it is really ultra vires. Merely stating that a subject is deprived of a part of his wealth, and is also liable to imprisonment in case he defaults in the payment of tax will not do. All taxes have these unpleasant consequences. It is also not as if the subject is left remediless. Generally, the assessment of sales tax is made by the Assistant or Deputy Commercial Tax Officer, and an appeal is provided for to the Commercial Tax Officer, and, later on, a revision to the Board of Revenue, which is a final court in some revenue and other cases, and which consists of persons of great experience and well acquainted with cases and laws. In several countries, like Fran