Hemant Gupta, J.

1. This judgment shall dispose of Civil Writ Petition Nos. 17178, 17188, 17696, 18898, 19073, 19132 and 20031 of 2003, 207 and 4415 of 2004 as all these cases involve similar question of law consequent to enactment of the Haryana Value Added Tax Act, 2003, w.e.f. April 1, 2003. However, for facility of reference, the facts are being taken from Civil Writ Petition No. 17178 of 2003.

2. The petitioner is a registered dealer under the Haryana General Sales Tax Act, 1973 (for short "the HGST Act") and is engaged in the business of purchase of paddy. For the assessment year 1998-99, the Assessing Authority framed the assessment under the HGST Act and raised an additional demand on account of purchase tax calculated under Section 6 of the HGST Act. The petitioner filed appeal along with an application under Section 39(5) of the HGST Act for entertaining the appeal without prior payment of tax on account of financial hardship on March 3, 2003. However, before the appeal filed by the petitioner could be entertained by the learned Appellate Authority, the HGST Act was repealed by virtue of Section 61(1) of the Haryana Value Added Tax Act, 2003 (for short "the HVAT A