Assessee status cannot be challenged collaterally in recovery proceedings once fixed in assessment and left unappealed.

An assessee's status and liability, once fixed in assessment proceedings, cannot be reopened or challenged collaterally during recovery proceedings. Where the assessment order identified the petitioner as the assessee and no appeal was filed against that determination, recovery authorities were entitled to proceed on that basis. A plea that a trade union was the real dealer could not be raised to defeat recovery, because the proper to dispute the assessee finding was the assessment process itself, not execution or recovery proceedings. The recovery action was therefore maintainable against the petitioner.

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Issues: Whether the petitioner could, in recovery proceedings for sales tax, challenge the assessment finding that he was the assessee and avoid liability on the plea that the trade union was the real dealer.

Analysis: The assessment order had identified the petitioner as the assessee and attributed the business to him. No appeal had been filed against that assessment. The status of the assessee is determined in the assessment proceedings, and recovery authorities cannot reopen or alter that status. A dispute that the petitioner was not the assessee could therefore not be agitated collaterally in proceedings for recovery.

Conclusion: The petitioner could not dispute his status as assessee in recovery proceedings, and the recovery action against him was maintainable.

Ratio Decidendi: The assessee's liability and status, once determined in assessment proceedings, cannot be challenged collaterally in recovery proceedings.

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