Service on one former partner of a dissolved firm can start appeal limitation under sales tax law.

Section 3-C(1) of the U.P. Sales Tax Act treats a discontinued firm as continuing for assessment and recovery, and keeps former partners jointly and severally liable. That legal fiction does not require service on every erstwhile partner for procedural purposes. Service of the assessment order or notice on one former partner is sufficient service on the dissolved firm, and limitation for appeal runs from that date. The view that each partner had to be separately served was rejected as applicable to a different factual situation. The resulting legal position is that service on one served partner binds the dealer for limitation purposes.

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Issues: Whether, on the dissolution of a firm, service of the assessment order or notice on one erstwhile partner was sufficient to treat the dealer as served and to start limitation for an appeal.

Analysis: Section 3-C(1) of the U.P. Sales Tax Act creates a legal fiction that, where a firm has discontinued business, the assessment may proceed as if discontinuance had not occurred and every former partner remains jointly and severally liable. The fiction is intended to preserve the tax machinery for assessment and recovery, not to multiply the number of dealers for procedural purposes. Once notice is served on one partner, the dealer is treated as served, and the ordinary provisions regarding appeal and limitation apply from that date. The rule requiring service on each partner was not accepted, and the earlier decision dealing with absence of service on any effective partner was held to concern a different situation.

Conclusion: Service on Nawi Hussain was valid service on the dissolved firm, and limitation for filing the appeal ran from that service. The appeal filed by the other partner was therefore barred by time.

Final Conclusion: The revisions were allowed and the legal position was settled in favour of treating service on one served partner of a dissolved firm as service on the dealer for limitation and recovery purposes.

Ratio Decidendi: For a dissolved firm under section 3-C(1)(b), service of notice on one erstwhile partner is sufficient to constitute service on the dealer, and limitation for appeal begins from that service.

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