Provisional assessment power under sales tax law survives filing of returns when the parent statute confers no limiting precondition.

A provisional assessment under section 7-A of the U.P. Sales Tax Act was upheld as available even where the dealer had filed quarterly returns. The Court read section 7-A as conferring a substantive power to make provisional assessment for part of the assessment year without any precondition that no return must have been filed. Rule 41(3) was treated as a procedural supplement and could not narrow the scope of the parent Act. The assessing authority therefore retained jurisdiction to proceed with provisional assessment notwithstanding the filing of returns, and the challenge to that power failed.

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Issues: Whether a provisional assessment under section 7-A of the U.P. Sales Tax Act could be made where the dealer had filed quarterly returns, and whether rule 41(3) restricted that power only to cases of filing of returns.

Analysis: Section 7-A conferred power to make a provisional assessment for a portion of the assessment year and did not prescribe any precondition that no return should have been filed. The provision was to operate along with the Act, including section 7(3), which empowers assessment to the best of judgment. Rule 41(3) was a supplemental procedural rule and could not be read as cutting down the width of the parent Act. The proper construction was that the assessing authority retained power to make a provisional assessment whether or not a return had been filed, and there was no inconsistency between the Act and the rule.

Conclusion: The provisional assessment was valid, and the challenge to the Sales Tax Officer's jurisdiction failed.

Final Conclusion: The appeals were allowed and the High Court's quashing of the provisional assessment was set aside, affirming the authority's power to proceed with provisional assessment notwithstanding the filing of returns.

Ratio Decidendi: A subordinate rule cannot be construed to restrict a substantive power conferred by the parent taxing statute, and a provisional assessment provision that is expressed without limiting preconditions applies even where returns have been filed.

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