Rule-making power cannot create a review power over completed tax assessments without express statutory authority.

Rule 63 under the East Punjab General Sales Tax Act was found to exceed the rule-making power because it purported to confer a substantive power to reopen and review completed assessments. The court treated review of a concluded assessment as a matter requiring express statutory authorisation, not implied subordinate legislation, and noted that such proceedings were judicial in character. As the Act did not delegate any general power of review, an assessment made under section 11(4) could not be reopened under Rule 63. The rule was therefore ultra vires to that extent.

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Issues: Whether rule 63 framed under the East Punjab General Sales Tax Act, 1948 was intra vires the Act and whether an assessment made under section 11(4) could be reopened under that rule.

Analysis: Rule 63 was construed as conferring on the assessing authority a power to reopen and review a completed assessment after fresh enquiry. Such a power was treated as a matter of legislative policy and an essential feature of the taxing scheme, and therefore not a subject that could be introduced by rule-making power unless the statute expressly authorised that delegation. The Act contained no specific delegation empowering the rule-making authority to confer a general power of review. The proceedings under the Act were also treated as judicial proceedings, so a completed assessment could be reopened only in accordance with the Act itself and not by an ancillary rule.

Conclusion: Rule 63 was held to be ultra vires to the extent that it authorised reopening or review of an assessment, and an assessment made under section 11(4) could not be reopened under that rule. The revision was therefore dismissed in favour of the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The decision affirms that a taxing authority cannot acquire a substantive power of review through subordinate legislation unless the parent Act clearly authorises it.

Ratio Decidendi: A rule-making power cannot be used to confer a substantive power of review over completed assessments unless the parent statute expressly delegates that authority.

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