Effective personal hearing requirement vitiates VAT assessment where notice lacks clarity on hearing date, time and venue.

Where the statute and binding departmental instructions require a personal hearing, the hearing must be fixed with clear notice of date, time and venue and be meaningful in substance. On the facts, the revised VAT assessments were issued after a hearing opportunity that was not effectively granted, so the orders were set aside. The Court remitted the matters for fresh assessment after a proper hearing and consideration of the quantitative details on burning loss, while declining to examine the merits of the 1% burning loss adjustment or the related input tax credit reversal.

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Issues: Whether the revised assessment orders under the Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Act, 2006 were liable to be set aside for want of an effective personal hearing and for consequential fresh consideration of the burning loss issue.

Analysis: The revised assessments arose from a proposal to reverse input tax credit on a uniform 1% burning loss in the manufacturing process. The notice contemplated personal hearing, and the departmental circular governing passing of orders required that personal hearing be invariably afforded. In the facts, the opportunity was not fixed with sufficient specificity as to date, time and venue, and the assessee asserted readiness to furnish quantitative details if such hearing was granted. The Court therefore held that the orders could not stand, but it expressly declined to examine the merits of the 1% burning loss determination or the substantive ITC reversal issue.

Conclusion: The impugned assessment orders were set aside for denial of effective personal hearing, and the matters were remitted for fresh assessment after granting a proper hearing and considering the quantitative details on burning loss.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the statute and binding departmental instructions contemplate a personal hearing, the hearing must be meaningful and fixed with clarity as to date, time and venue; failure to afford such effective hearing vitiates the assessment and warrants remand for fresh consideration.

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