Reasonable time for tax assessments: stale orders passed after five years were held time-barred and unenforceable.

Where the Punjab General Sales Tax Act, 1948 prescribed no express limitation for the relevant assessment years, the assessing authority was still required to act within a reasonable time. The Court held that assessment power should ordinarily be exercised within three years and, in any event, not beyond five years. Reading Section 11 with the proviso to Section 14, it concluded that assessments made more than five years after the relevant years were stale and could not be sustained. The impugned assessment orders were therefore time-barred and unenforceable, and the reference petitions succeeded in favour of the assessees.

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Issues: Whether the assessment orders passed under the Punjab General Sales Tax Act, 1948 were time-barred for being made beyond a reasonable period where no express period of limitation was prescribed for the relevant assessment years.

Analysis: The assessment orders were passed more than five years after the relevant assessment years. The legal principle applied was that, where the statute does not prescribe a limitation period, the taxing authority must act within a reasonable time. The Court applied the settled view that such power should ordinarily be exercised within three years and, in any event, not beyond five years. The statutory scheme under Section 11 of the Punjab General Sales Tax Act, 1948 and the restriction contained in the proviso to Section 14 of the same Act were read together to support the conclusion that stale assessments could not be sustained.

Conclusion: The impugned assessment orders were time-barred and unenforceable, and the issue was decided in favour of the assessees and against the Revenue.

Final Conclusion: The reference petitions succeeded because the assessments were held to be invalid for want of timely exercise of jurisdiction, and the remaining questions did not require adjudication.

Ratio Decidendi: In the absence of an express statutory limitation, a taxing authority must exercise assessment power within a reasonable period, ordinarily three years and in any event not beyond five years, failing which the assessment becomes time-barred.

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