Consequential reassessment under VAT law falls under the special limitation period when fresh action follows an appellate jurisdictional set-aside.

Where an earlier assessment is set aside in appeal for want of jurisdiction and the appellate order permits fresh action by the competent authority, the subsequent assessment is treated as a consequential assessment rather than an original assessment. Section 37 of the Andhra Pradesh Value Added Tax Act, 2005 applies to such proceedings and overrides the general limitation under section 21(3). As the impugned notices and assessment orders were issued within the three-year period counted from receipt of the appellate order, they were within limitation and not vitiated for want of jurisdiction.

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Issues: Whether the reassessment orders passed after the appellate authority set aside the earlier assessments for want of jurisdiction were barred by limitation under section 21(3) of the Andhra Pradesh Value Added Tax Act, 2005, or were valid as consequential assessments within the time prescribed by section 37 of the Act.

Analysis: The earlier assessment orders were annulled in appeal on the ground that the assessing officer lacked jurisdiction to make them. The appellate order did not decide the merits, but it set aside the assessments and indicated that the matter could be taken up afresh by the competent authority. In that situation, the subsequent proceedings were not ordinary original assessments governed by section 21(3); they were assessments made in consequence of the appellate order under section 33. Section 37, which overrides section 21 and provides a three-year period from receipt of the appellate order for assessments made in pursuance of or in consequence of such order, therefore applied. The impugned notices and assessment orders were issued and passed within that period.

Conclusion: The reassessment orders were within limitation under section 37 and were not vitiated for want of jurisdiction.

Final Conclusion: The writ petitions failed on the limitation and jurisdiction challenge, while leaving the assessee free to pursue the statutory appeal on merits.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an earlier assessment is set aside in appeal for want of jurisdiction and the appellate order contemplates fresh action by the competent authority, the subsequent assessment is governed by the special limitation provision applicable to consequential assessments and not by the limitation for original assessments.

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