The 2016 amendment is a new legislation and in order to have retrospectivity it should have been specifically provided therein that it was intended to cover contraventions at an earlier point of time. That express provision is not there. Section 6(c) of the General Clauses Act, 1897 lays down that repeal of an enactment, which necessarily includes an amendment, would not affect “any right, privilege, obligation or liability acquired, accrued or incurred under any enactment so repealed”, unless a different intention is expressed by the Legislature. A declaration that the property was benami could not have been made unless a procedure was prescribed by rules made under section 8 of the 1988 Act. No rules under that section were ever made. Hence, although the Act was entered in the statute book, it was an Act on paper only and inoperative. By the addition of Chapter III to the Act by the Amendment Act of 2016, an Adjudicating Authority and its composition, jurisdiction and powers were provided. Accordingly the Court held that   applying the definition of benami property and benami transaction the Central Government could not, on the basis of 2016 amendment, allege contravention and start the prosecution in respect of a transaction in 2011.