Legal heir liability under sales tax law continues only to the extent of inherited assets, not personal liability.

Section 20 of the Kerala General Sales Tax Act treats the legal representative of a deceased dealer as the dealer for statutory purposes, while limiting liability to the extent of the deceased's assets in the heir's hands. On that basis, pending assessment and allied penalty proceedings may continue after the dealer's death, and the assessing authority may issue notice to the legal heir for production of books and verification. A notice seeking accounts for comparison with prior inspection findings is not itself a levy of penalty. If evasion is later proved, recovery can be made only from the inherited estate, not from the heir's personal assets.

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Issues: Whether the notice calling for production of books of account and proposing penalty under the Kerala General Sales Tax Act could be sustained against the legal heir of a deceased dealer, and whether the liability under the Act could be proceeded against and recovered from the estate inherited by the successor.

Analysis: Section 20 of the Kerala General Sales Tax Act, 1963 deems the legal representative of a deceased dealer to be the dealer for the purposes of the Act, while restricting liability to the extent of the deceased dealer's assets in the hands of the legal representative. On that footing, proceedings pending at the time of death do not abate, and the assessing authority is entitled to continue the statutory process after issuing notice to the legal heir. In the present case, the impugned notice was only a call for production of books to verify accounts with the stock found in the earlier inspection report; it was not, at that stage, an actual levy of penalty. If evasion is established after verification, penalty may be levied and recovered only from the inherited assets, not as a personal liability of the legal heir.

Conclusion: The notice was held maintainable against the legal heir, and the challenge to it failed. The proceeding could continue, subject to recovery only from the deceased dealer's assets in the hands of the successor.

Final Conclusion: The original petition was dismissed, while granting time to the petitioner to produce the books of account for verification.

Ratio Decidendi: Under the statutory fiction applicable to a deceased dealer, assessment and allied penalty proceedings may be continued against the legal representative, but liability is confined to the deceased's estate and not the legal heir's personal assets.

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