Limitation for tax recovery starts when the Collector is requested to realise dues, not when the demand notice is served.

Recovery of agricultural income-tax under the land-revenue machinery was held to commence when the assessing authority requested the Collector to realise the dues, not when the Tahsildar later issued a demand notice. For limitation under section 32(2) of the U.P. Agricultural Income Tax Act, the relevant starting point was the forwarding of the request or certificate, treated as in pari materia with the commencement rule under the Income-tax Act, 1922. The Tahsildar's notice was valid only as a writ of demand under the land revenue procedure and did not itself begin recovery proceedings. The limitation objection therefore failed.

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Issues: (i) Whether recovery proceedings for agricultural income-tax were barred by limitation under section 32(2) of the U.P. Agricultural Income Tax Act; (ii) whether the Tahsildar's notice amounted to the commencement of recovery proceedings or was only a writ of demand under the land revenue law.

Issue (i): Whether recovery proceedings for agricultural income-tax were barred by limitation under section 32(2) of the U.P. Agricultural Income Tax Act.

Analysis: Section 32(2) prohibited commencement of recovery proceedings after one year from the date on which the last instalment fell due. The Court held that commencement was not the date on which the Tahsildar issued the demand notice. Recovery machinery under section 32(1) was set in motion when the assessing authority requested the Collector to realise the dues. The provision was treated as being in pari materia with section 46(7) of the Income-tax Act, 1922, under which recovery proceedings were understood to commence when the certificate or request was forwarded to the Collector.

Conclusion: The recovery proceedings were within time and were not barred by limitation.

Issue (ii): Whether the Tahsildar's notice amounted to the commencement of recovery proceedings or was only a writ of demand under the land revenue law.

Analysis: By virtue of section 32(1) of the U.P. Agricultural Income Tax Act, arrears of agricultural income-tax were recoverable as arrears of land revenue. Section 288 of the U.P. Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act made the land-revenue recovery procedure applicable, and section 280(1) authorised a writ of demand by the Tahsildar once arrears had become due. The notice served by the Tahsildar therefore answered to that procedural step, but it did not itself initiate the recovery proceedings.

Conclusion: The notice was valid as a writ of demand, but it did not mark the commencement of recovery proceedings.

Final Conclusion: The limitation challenge failed because recovery proceedings commenced on the assessing authority's request to the Collector, and the writ petition was dismissed with costs.

Ratio Decidendi: For recovery under a statutory scheme using land-revenue machinery, proceedings commence when the competent taxing authority requests the Collector to realise the dues, not when the subsequent demand notice is issued in execution of that request.

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