Assessment against deceased partner fails where firm dissolution is unresolved; tax authority must first determine dissolution on evidence.

Assessment against a deceased partner could not be sustained without first deciding whether the partnership firm had been dissolved before the assessment. If the firm had been dissolved, the assessment had to proceed under the rule applicable to a dissolved firm; if it had not, the assessment could not be made against the deceased partner alone. Because dissolution was a foundational fact affecting tax liability, the assessing authority was required to determine it on evidence before finalising the assessment and passing a fresh order.

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Issues: Whether the assessment order against the deceased partner alone was sustainable when the assessee-firm was asserted to have been dissolved, and whether the matter required reconsideration by the taxing authority.

Analysis: The assessment related to a registered partnership firm under the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1954. The record showed that the petitioners consistently maintained that the firm had been dissolved before the assessment order was passed, but the Sales Tax Officer had not carefully examined that contention or recorded a finding on it. If the firm had in fact been dissolved, the case ought to have been dealt with under the provision applicable to a dissolved firm. If the firm had not been dissolved, the assessment should not have been made against the deceased partner alone but against the firm itself. Since the factual question of dissolution went to the root of the assessment, it required examination on evidence by the assessing authority.

Conclusion: The assessment order was quashed and the matter was remitted to the Sales Tax Officer to determine whether the firm had been dissolved on 15 April 1958 and to pass a fresh order in accordance with law.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the existence or dissolution of a partnership firm is foundational to tax liability, the assessing authority must determine that factual issue on evidence before finalising assessment, and an assessment made without such determination cannot stand.

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