Provisional attachment cannot reach directors' personal property for a company's tax dues absent express statutory authority.

Section 45(1) of the Gujarat Value Added Tax Act, 2003 authorises provisional attachment only of property belonging to the dealer during pending assessment or reassessment proceedings. As the dealer was the company and the attachment targeted the directors' personal immovable properties, the statute did not permit recovery of the company's alleged tax dues from those assets. Section 86, which addresses offences by companies, did not create a basis to proceed against directors' private property, and no factual basis was shown to lift the corporate veil. The provisional attachment was therefore unlawful and was set aside.

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Issues: Whether the personal immovable properties of the directors of a company could be provisionally attached under section 45(1) of the Gujarat Value Added Tax Act, 2003 for possible tax dues of the company during pendency of assessment proceedings.

Analysis: Section 45(1) empowers provisional attachment of property belonging to the dealer during pending assessment or reassessment proceedings to protect revenue interest. The dealer in question was the company, not its directors. Section 86 dealing with offences by companies fastens criminal liability on persons in charge of the company, but it does not create a statutory liability to recover the company's tax dues from the personal assets of directors. The impugned attachment concerned the directors' own properties, and no factual basis was shown to lift the corporate veil or to treat those properties as belonging to the dealer company. The controversy regarding the underlying input tax credit claim was also still under assessment and was not for attaching directors' personal assets.

Conclusion: The provisional attachment of the directors' personal properties was unlawful and was set aside.

Final Conclusion: The petition succeeded and the impugned attachment order could not be sustained because the statute did not authorize recovery against the personal properties of the company's directors for the company's alleged tax liability.

Ratio Decidendi: In the absence of an express statutory provision, provisional attachment for a company's tax dues cannot be extended to the personal properties of its directors merely because they are in charge of the company's affairs.

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