Post-dissolution sales tax assessment of a dissolved partnership firm is impermissible absent express statutory authority.

A dissolved partnership firm could not be assessed to sales tax for a pre-dissolution period once it had ceased to exist as an assessable entity, unless the statute expressly authorised post-dissolution assessment. The Court applied the unamended law, holding that the later amendment was not retrospective, and followed the principle that there is no material distinction between assessment proceedings begun before dissolution and those begun after dissolution if the assessment order is made only after the firm has ceased to exist. The impugned notices and assessment orders were quashed because no subsisting assessment order had been made before dissolution.

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Issues: Whether a partnership firm that had dissolved before the assessment order was made could still be assessed to sales tax for the pre-dissolution period in the absence of an express statutory provision.

Analysis: The dispute concerned assessment proceedings initiated, and in part completed, after the firm had been dissolved and intimation of dissolution had been given to the authorities. The governing law, as applied by the Court, had to be the unamended position because the later amendment was held to be not retrospective. The controlling principle drawn from the binding pronouncement of the Supreme Court was that there is no relevant distinction between assessment proceedings started before dissolution and those started after dissolution, if the actual assessment order is made only after the firm has ceased to exist as an assessable entity. In the absence of an express statutory provision enabling such assessment after dissolution, the firm could not be proceeded against as a taxable entity once it had lost that character before the assessment order was passed.

Conclusion: The dissolved firm was not liable to assessment for the period prior to dissolution where no subsisting assessment order had been made before dissolution.

Final Conclusion: The impugned notices and assessment orders were quashed, and the writ petition succeeded because the assessment against the dissolved firm could not be sustained in law.

Ratio Decidendi: A partnership firm that has dissolved before the assessment order is passed cannot be assessed as an existing taxable entity for a prior period unless the statute expressly authorises such post-dissolution assessment.

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