Lawful sales tax assessments cannot be reopened merely to enable penalty proceedings where no defect in the assessment is shown.

A lawful assessment made under section 12(2) of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act could not be set aside for the collateral purpose of enabling penalty proceedings under section 12(3). The assessments were accepted as correct and legal, and neither the appellate authority nor the Board of Revenue identified any defect in them. Because the only object of interference was to facilitate the later exercise of penalty power, the Board acted without justification. The assessee was therefore entitled to relief.

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Issues: Whether the Board of Revenue could set aside assessments that were otherwise valid under section 12(2) of the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959, merely to enable the assessing authority to invoke the penalty power under section 12(3).

Analysis: The assessment power under section 12(2) had been properly exercised and neither the appellate authority nor the Board disputed the correctness or legality of the assessments. The Board had interfered only to facilitate invocation of the penalty provision, even though the assessments themselves were not shown to suffer from any legal defect. A lawful assessment could not be disturbed for such a collateral objective when the sole purpose was to enable a separate penalty power to be exercised after the assessments had already been completed.

Conclusion: The Board of Revenue was not justified in setting aside the assessments for the collateral purpose of enabling penalty proceedings under section 12(3); the challenge succeeded and the assessee was entitled to relief.

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