Reassessment after recorded partition requires serving notices on ex members and pro rata apportionment of the tax liability.

Whether reassessment proceedings can be initiated after a recorded partition: Section 34 invokes the assessment machinery of Section 23 and, read with the rule preserving aggregate assessment after partition, permits reassessment for a year when partition has been recorded; outcome: such proceedings are permissible. How liability and notices must be directed after partition: the notice under Section 34 must be served on ex members who are liable and the total tax must be apportioned pro rata with separate assessments on ex members, resorting to joint and several liability only upon failure of realisation; outcome: failure to apportion before issuing full demands is a procedural irregularity but can be cured and does not invalidate proceedings where an ex member received proper notice and returned.

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Issues: Whether proceedings under Section 34 in respect of assessment year 1939-40 could be validly initiated and completed after a Hindu undivided family had ceased to exist and an order under Section 25A(1) recording partition had been passed.

Analysis: Section 25A(2) prescribes assessment of the total income of the former joint family as if no partition had occurred and separate assessments on the ex-members in accordance with Section 23, with a proviso making ex-members jointly and severally liable for the total tax. Section 34 is not itself an assessing section but empowers the Income-tax Officer, upon serving a notice in the terms of Section 22(2), to proceed to assess or reassess under the assessment provisions (including Section 23). Read together, Section 34 and Section 25A(2) permit re-assessment of income chargeable to tax for a year when partition has been recorded, and the resulting assessment is to be apportioned pro rata among ex-members as required by Section 25A(2). The notice under Section 34 must be served on the person or persons who are liable to pay the tax; where the family has been partitioned and ex-members are liable under Section 25A(2), notice ought to be issued on each such member. Failure to apportion the assessment and issuing demand notices for the full amount to each member without first making pro rata assessments is procedurally incorrect, but such procedural irregularity is capable of being rectified. Where an ex-member did receive proper notice and returned, and is jointly and severally liable under the proviso, that irregularity does not avail him in the present reference.

Conclusion: Proceedings under Section 34 read with Section 25A(2) are permissible and operative after a recorded partition; notice must be served on the ex-members who are liable and the total assessment must be apportioned pro rata and separate assessments made on the members, with resort to joint and several liability only upon failure of realisation. The challenge to the validity of the proceedings as a whole is rejected.

Ratio Decidendi: Section 34 operates by invoking the assessment machinery of Section 23 and, when applied after a recorded partition, must be read with Section 25A(2) so that notices and assessments are directed to the ex-members and the total tax is apportioned pro rata before invoking joint and several liability.

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