Recovery against legal representatives requires identification of all heirs and is limited to inherited estate only.

Recovery of sales tax dues from legal representatives of a deceased dealer cannot proceed against one representative alone without first identifying all legal representatives and determining whether any estate of the deceased has been inherited. The liability of legal representatives is limited to the extent of assets received from the deceased, so objections that the petitioner had long separated, had received no inherited assets, and that other representatives existed had to be examined on merits. The recovery order was therefore unsustainable on the material considered.

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Issues: Whether recovery proceedings for sales tax dues could be sustained against the petitioner without first ascertaining the deceased dealer's legal representatives and whether such representatives were liable only to the extent of assets inherited by them.

Analysis: The order proceeding on the footing that the assessment had become final did not address the petitioner's objections that he had separated from his father long earlier, that no assets of the deceased had come to him, and that there were other legal representatives as well. The governing principle applied was that, where a dealer dies leaving more than one legal representative, recovery cannot be pursued against a single representative in isolation; the authority must first identify all legal representatives and determine whether they have inherited any assets of the deceased. Liability of legal representatives is confined to the extent of estate received by them.

Conclusion: The recovery order could not be sustained and the petitioner's objections had to be considered on merits.

Ratio Decidendi: Recovery of tax dues from legal representatives of a deceased assessee is permissible only after identifying all legal representatives and only to the extent of the deceased's assets that have come into their hands.

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