Rule 6-A jurisdiction: a dealer directed to one circle for assessment cannot be assessed again in another circle.

A Commissioner's order under rule 6-A of the Orissa Sales Tax Rules can require a dealer carrying on business in more than one circle to be registered and assessed in one specified circle for the relevant transactions. Where such a direction validly covers the dealer's assessable transactions, the assessing authority in another circle has no continuing jurisdiction to assess the same transactions, because local officers derive authority only from the Commissioner's conferral of jurisdiction. The article explains that the jurisdiction of other circles is excluded to that extent, and that assessment proceedings in the other circle are therefore without authority.

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Issues: Whether, after an order under rule 6-A of the Orissa Sales Tax Rules, 1947 directing a dealer to be registered and assessed in one specified circle, another Sales Tax Officer could still assess the dealer for the same transactions in a different circle.

Analysis: Rule 3(4) empowers the Government to constitute circles and the Commissioner to authorise concurrent jurisdiction, while rule 6-A enables the Commissioner, by general or special order, to direct that a dealer carrying on business in more than one circle be registered in one specified circle. The Commissioner's order required the dealer to be registered in the Balasore Circle for all such transactions and to submit returns and pay tax there. That direction was not confined to future periods alone; it covered the dealer's assessable transactions in the relevant circles. Since the assessing officers derive authority only from the Commissioner's conferral of jurisdiction, the later order displaced the jurisdiction of the officer in the Bhubaneswar I Circle to the extent the same transactions were brought within the Balasore Circle for assessment.

Conclusion: The notice issued by the Sales Tax Officer, Bhubaneswar I Circle, was without authority and was quashed, in favour of the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: When the Commissioner validly directs under rule 6-A that a dealer be registered and assessed in one specified circle for transactions carried on in multiple circles, the jurisdiction of other assessing officers stands excluded to that extent.

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