Dissolved firm cannot be assessed without express statutory authority; post-dissolution liability rests with partners, not the firm.

A dissolved firm ceases to be a legal entity and cannot be assessed to sales tax unless the taxing statute expressly or by necessary implication preserves that liability after dissolution. On the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1954, the court found no such express or implied authority; the post-dissolution liability provisions shifted responsibility to the partners, not the firm itself, and the reference application against the dissolved firm was therefore not maintainable.

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Issues: Whether a dissolved firm could be assessed to sales tax under the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1954, and whether a reference application relating to such a dissolved firm was maintainable.

Analysis: The statutory scheme was examined in the light of the rule that, once a firm is dissolved, it ceases to be a legal entity and cannot be assessed unless the taxing statute expressly or by necessary implication authorises such assessment. The provisions relied on by the revenue, including the liability and registration provisions of the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1954, were held not to contain any express or implied authority to assess the dissolved firm itself. The provision analogous to the joint and several liability of partners after dissolution was construed as shifting liability to the partners for assessment and payment, not preserving the dissolved firm as an assessable entity. The distinction drawn in the later Supreme Court decision on the Bombay legislation was accepted because that enactment contained specific provisions absent from the Rajasthan Act.

Conclusion: The dissolved firm could not be assessed to tax under the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1954, and the reference application against the dissolved firm was not maintainable.

Final Conclusion: The Court declined to call for a reference and the proceeding ended in dismissal on the ground that assessment could not continue against the dissolved firm.

Ratio Decidendi: A dissolved firm is not an assessable entity unless the taxing statute expressly or by necessary implication authorises assessment after dissolution; in the absence of such provision, liability after dissolution attaches to the partners, not to the firm itself.

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