Strict construction of rectification powers bars treating a rectification order as an assessment order under fiscal law.

Section 36(1) of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1955 was held to permit rectification only of an assessment order and only within three years from that order. A prior order passed in rectification proceedings could not be treated as an assessment order by legal fiction, because a fiscal statute must be construed strictly and no unexpressed power can be implied. On that basis, the later attempt to rectify the earlier rectification order was without jurisdiction and incompetent, and the challenge succeeded for the assessee.

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Issues: Whether section 36(1) of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1955 empowered the Agricultural Income-tax Officer to rectify an order passed in exercise of rectification powers, after the prescribed period for rectifying the original assessment order had expired.

Analysis: Section 36(1) confers rectification power only in relation to an assessment order and only within three years from the date of such order. The earlier order dated 25 February 1980 was an order of rectification, not an assessment order. The language of the provision could not be expanded by fiction to treat a rectification order as if it were an assessment order. A fiscal statute must be construed strictly, the court cannot read into it a power not expressly conferred, and any ambiguity must be resolved in favour of the subject.

Conclusion: The further rectification was without jurisdiction and incompetent; the challenge succeeded in favour of the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: A power of rectification under a fiscal statute must be confined to the precise statutory language, and a rectification order cannot be treated as an assessment order unless the statute expressly so provides.

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