Limitation in entry tax assessment excludes court-stayed periods and permits reassessment despite no completed original assessment.

Periods during which assessment proceedings are restrained by court order are excluded for limitation under the Karnataka Tax on Entry of Goods Act, so the assessment was treated as within time. A reassessment challenge based on the absence of an original assessment was rejected, as reassessment is not barred on that ground alone. Time exclusion was also available where the assessment process and related notices were effectively stayed, even if proceedings were not expressly stayed in so many words. On that basis, the writ petition was dismissed and the objections to limitation and reassessment failed.

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Issues: (i) Whether the assessment was barred by limitation under section 6(1) of the Karnataka Tax on Entry of Goods Act, 1979 after excluding the period during which proceedings were stayed. (ii) Whether reassessment could be disputed on the ground that there had been no original assessment. (iii) Whether time could be excluded under section 6(3) of the Karnataka Tax on Entry of Goods Act, 1979 when the proceedings for assessment were not expressly stayed.

Issue (i): Whether the assessment was barred by limitation under section 6(1) of the Karnataka Tax on Entry of Goods Act, 1979 after excluding the period during which proceedings were stayed.

Analysis: The period for completion of assessment was held not to have expired because the respondent had been restrained by interim orders from proceeding further. The time during which the restraint operated was treated as liable to exclusion, and therefore the prescribed period had not run out.

Conclusion: The limitation plea failed and was decided against the assessee.

Issue (ii): Whether reassessment could be disputed on the ground that there had been no original assessment.

Analysis: The objection was rejected in view of the binding principle that reassessment is not barred merely because an original assessment had not been completed in the manner contended by the assessee.

Conclusion: The challenge to reassessment on that ground failed and was decided against the assessee.

Issue (iii): Whether time could be excluded under section 6(3) of the Karnataka Tax on Entry of Goods Act, 1979 when the proceedings for assessment were not expressly stayed.

Analysis: The Court treated the stay of the operation of the relevant notices and directions as effectively restraining the authorities from making an assessment pursuant to the pre-assessment notice. On that basis, exclusion of time was held to be available.

Conclusion: The contention based on section 6(3) failed and was decided against the assessee.

Final Conclusion: The writ petition was dismissed because the assessment proceedings were not time-barred and the objections to reassessment and exclusion of time were rejected.

Ratio Decidendi: Periods during which the authority is restrained by court order from proceeding with assessment are excluded for limitation purposes, and such exclusion can apply even where the restraint operates through stay of the assessment process or related notices.

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