Director's personal property cannot be used for company tax recovery without a proven legal nexus or personal liability.

A director's separate personal properties cannot be attached or sold to recover a private limited company's tax dues unless the statute or proved facts establish a legally sustainable nexus or personal liability. Where no material shows that the director was a debtor of the company, or that the attached assets were acquired from company funds or represented company investments in the director's name, recovery against those independent assets is not permissible. The Gujarat HC therefore treated the attachment and proposed sale of the director's personal properties as unsustainable and quashed the recovery action.

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Issues: Whether the personal properties of a director of a private limited company can be attached and sold for recovery of the company's tax dues under section 44(1) of the Gujarat Value Added Tax Act, 2003.

Analysis: No material was shown to establish that the petitioner was herself a debtor of the defaulting company. The department also did not show that the attached properties were acquired from company funds or represented company investments in the petitioner's name. In the absence of such linkage, the statutory recovery provision could not be invoked to proceed against the independent properties of a director for dues owed by a private limited company. The principle that a director's separate personal property is not liable for company dues, absent a legally recognised basis, applied.

Conclusion: The attachment and proposed sale of the petitioner's personal properties for recovery of the company's dues could not be sustained and was quashed in favour of the petitioner.

Ratio Decidendi: Independent personal properties of a director cannot be attached for recovery of a private limited company's tax dues unless the statute or proved facts create a legally sustainable nexus or personal liability.

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