Central Excise Duty on Sugar (Validation) Ordinance, 1979

The Central Excise Duty on Sugar (Validation) Ordinance, 1979 (Ordinance XXXIV of 1979) is a narrow tax-validation law. Section 1 records that it came into force immediately on promulgation, 16 July 1979.

Section 2, the sole substantive provision, retroactively validates a specific past levy: excise duty collected on stocks of sugar held by sugar mills on 7 June 1975, at the rate of twenty-seven rupees and twenty-two paisa per hundredweight (cwt), in addition to the duty otherwise chargeable under subsection (4) of section 3 of the Central Excise and Salt Act, 1944, for the 1974-75 year. The Ordinance declares that this duty was validly levied and collected, is not refundable, and that any part not yet paid or recovered before the Ordinance's commencement remains recoverable under the Central Excise and Salt Act, 1944, and its rules — overriding any contrary court judgment.

In effect, this law was passed to shore up a specific historical tax collection against legal challenge, likely because a court had cast doubt on its validity. It does not create any new, ongoing tax obligation for the public and has no continuing operative effect beyond that one 1975 sugar-duty episode.

As a 1979 Martial-Law-era ordinance addressing a single historical transaction, it is of narrow, largely historical interest today.