Lawful attachment requires due notice and prescribed recovery procedure before sealing assets for tax dues.

Sealing property for recovery of sales tax dues is not sustainable unless the person proceeded against has been duly notified, the prescribed attachment procedure has been followed, and the assets seized are identifiable as belonging to the defaulter. On the record, service of notice on the concerned director was not established, nor was it shown that the contents of the sealed suite belonged to the defaulting company or that recovery was executed under the governing public demand procedure. The sealing was therefore invalid, while lawful recovery against attachable assets of directors remained available to the extent permitted by law.

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Issues: Whether the sealing of the petitioner's suite for recovery of sales tax dues was valid in the absence of notice to the concerned director and without compliance with the prescribed attachment procedure.

Analysis: The material on record did not establish that notice for payment of the dues or proportionate liability had been served on the father of the petitioner, nor did it show that the assets in the sealed suite belonged to the defaulting company. The record also did not substantiate that the attachment was carried out in accordance with the procedure prescribed for recovery of public demands. In these circumstances, the sealing could not be sustained as a lawful attachment measure, although the respondents were left free to proceed against assets of the directors to the extent permissible in law.

Conclusion: The sealing of the suite was held to be invalid and the respondents were directed to unseal it at once.

Final Conclusion: The application succeeded to the extent of setting aside the impugned sealing, while preserving the respondents' right to proceed lawfully against attachable assets in accordance with the governing recovery framework.

Ratio Decidendi: An attachment by sealing cannot be sustained unless the person proceeded against is duly notified and the recovery procedure is lawfully followed, and the measure must be supported by identifiable attachable assets of the defaulter.

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