Mandatory reassessment notice within limitation required; delayed statutory notice vitiates the reassessment process.

A reassessment under the Tamil Nadu Agricultural Income-tax Act was held void because the mandatory notice under section 16(2) was not served within the five-year period prescribed for action under section 35. The court treated timely compliance with that notice requirement as essential to the validity of reassessment, so belated service could not cure the defect. The reassessment was not invalid merely because the later order did not separately quantify the tax payable, since the amount could be traced to the earlier quantified assessment and the omission was only technical. The impugned common order was quashed.

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Issues: (i) Whether the reassessment was invalid for want of a notice under section 16(2) of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1955 within the five-year period prescribed for action under section 35; (ii) Whether the reassessment order was bad because it did not itself quantify the tax payable.

Issue (i): Whether the reassessment was invalid for want of a notice under section 16(2) of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1955 within the five-year period prescribed for action under section 35.

Analysis: Section 35 authorises reassessment only within five years and contemplates a notice requiring the assessee to furnish the particulars referred to in section 16(2). The notice issued in the present case did not call upon the assessee to file a return in the prescribed form with the requisite particulars, and the statutory notice under section 16(2) was issued only in 1985, beyond the limitation period applicable to the relevant assessment years. In reassessment proceedings, compliance with the notice requirement is mandatory, and the absence of timely compliance vitiates the proceedings.

Conclusion: The reassessment was invalid for non-compliance with the mandatory notice requirement within the period of limitation, in favour of the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether the reassessment order was bad because it did not itself quantify the tax payable.

Analysis: Although the revised reassessment order did not separately state the amount of tax, it referred back to the earlier quantified assessment and the assessee was aware of the amount demanded. The omission was treated as a technical defect and not one that independently vitiated the assessment.

Conclusion: The reassessment was not invalid merely because the later order did not separately quantify the tax payable, against the assessee on this issue.

Final Conclusion: The reassessment could not be sustained because the mandatory statutory notice was not issued within the prescribed time, and the impugned common order was quashed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a reassessment statute makes service of a prescribed notice within a fixed limitation period mandatory, reassessment made without timely compliance with that notice requirement is void.

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