Assessment of unregistered dealers may exclude reassessment limitation where the classification serves to prevent tax evasion.

Section 14(6) of the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1953 validly permits assessment of an unregistered dealer without importing the limitation period applicable to reassessment of registered dealers under section 15(1). The court treated registered and unregistered dealers as distinct classes, noting that the absence of a limitation period for unregistered dealers has a rational nexus with the object of preventing tax evasion. A prior Supreme Court decision on a different statutory setting, where both provisions applied to the same class of registered dealers, did not control the issue. The Tribunal was therefore wrong to apply the reassessment limitation and to fix liability from 1 April 1958 instead of 1 April 1957.

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Issues: Whether the limitation period applicable to reassessment of registered dealers under the Act could be imported into an assessment of an unregistered dealer under section 14(6) of the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1953.

Analysis: The assessment scheme under section 14(6) applies to dealers who, though liable to tax, have failed to apply for registration, whereas the limitation-based reassessment provision under section 15(1) operates in the case of registered dealers. The earlier Supreme Court decision relied on by the Tribunal concerned a different statutory setting in which the two provisions applied to the same class of registered dealers. In contrast, the later Supreme Court ruling upheld the validity of section 14(6) and the corresponding provision in the 1959 Act on the footing that unregistered dealers who evade registration form a separate class. The absence of a limitation period for such dealers was held to rest on an intelligible differentia having a rational nexus with the object of preventing tax evasion.

Conclusion: The limitation period in section 15(1) could not be read into an assessment under section 14(6), and the Tribunal was wrong in fixing liability from 1st April, 1958 instead of 1st April, 1957.

Final Conclusion: The reference was answered against the assessee and the assessment under section 14(6) was upheld without importing the reassessment limitation applicable to registered dealers.

Ratio Decidendi: A provision governing assessment of unregistered dealers may validly exclude a limitation period where the classification between registered and unregistered dealers is based on intelligible differentia and bears a rational nexus to the prevention of tax evasion.

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