Statutory notice service defect vitiates best judgment assessment and recovery proceedings for non-compliance with prescribed service rules.

Service of statutory notice was a condition precedent to valid assessment and recovery under the Bengal Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1944. Because the notices were not duly or properly served, and affixation was attempted at the outset without compliance with the prescribed mode of service, the best judgment assessment could not be sustained. The same defect also vitiated the consequential certificate proceedings. The Calcutta HC therefore treated the assessment and recovery steps as invalid for want of proper service and quashed the proceedings in favour of the assessee.

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Issues: Whether the assessment and consequent certificate proceedings under the Bengal Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1944 were sustainable when the statutory notices were not duly served and were attempted to be served by affixation at the first instance.

Analysis: The statutory scheme required service of notice before assessment proceedings could validly progress, and the same requirement governed the certificate proceedings. On the admitted facts, notices were not duly or properly served at any stage. Service by affixation at the outset, without due compliance with the prescribed mode of service, was not accepted as sufficient. In these circumstances, the best judgment assessment and the certificate proceedings could not stand.

Conclusion: The proceedings were invalid for want of due service of notice and were quashed in favour of the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: Where service of statutory notice is a condition precedent to assessment or recovery proceedings, non-compliance with the prescribed mode of service vitiates the proceedings, including any best judgment assessment and consequential recovery action.

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