Valid statutory notice for reassessment requires prescribed service modes to be exhausted before affixation is used.

A notice initiating reassessment is jurisdictional, so valid service in the manner prescribed by the rules must occur before proceedings can lawfully continue. Where the rules allow affixation only as a last resort after other practicable modes have been exhausted, service by affixation at the first instance is invalid. Mere knowledge of the proceedings, or later participation, cannot cure the defect in statutory notice, and a later telegram did not establish knowledge of the section 21 proceedings. On that basis, the service was held invalid and the reassessment could not be sustained.

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Issues: Whether service of notice under section 21 by affixation was valid when the other prescribed modes of service had not first been exhausted, and whether the assessee's alleged knowledge of the proceedings could cure the defect in service.

Analysis: A notice initiating reassessment proceedings is jurisdictional in character, and actual valid service in the manner prescribed by the rules is necessary before the assessment machinery can validly be set in motion. Rule 77 permitted affixation only when none of the other modes of service was practicable. Since affixation was adopted at the first instance without trying the earlier modes, the service did not comply with the rule. Mere knowledge of the proceedings, or participation in some later proceeding, could not substitute for the statutory requirement of valid service of notice under section 21. The later telegram was also held not to establish knowledge of the section 21 proceedings.

Conclusion: The service of notice by affixation on 30 March 1962 was not valid, and the assessment under section 21 could not be sustained. The issue was decided in favour of the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a statute prescribes successive modes of service and permits affixation only as a last resort, service by affixation without first exhausting the other practicable modes is invalid, and mere knowledge of the proceedings cannot cure the absence of valid statutory notice.

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