Reassessment limitation under VAT law: notice issued beyond six years was time-barred, and exclusion of time was rejected.

For limitation under the Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Act, 2006, reassessment proceedings must be commenced within the prescribed period, and the relevant date is the issue of the reassessment notice, not the date of completion. Because the notice was issued more than six years after the deemed assessment date of 30.06.2012, it was treated as time-barred. The plea to exclude time spent in earlier litigation was rejected because the statutory exclusion was not shown to apply to the same question of law directly relevant to the reassessment. The notice was accordingly quashed.

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Issues: Whether the reassessment notice issued under the Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Act, 2006 was barred by limitation, and whether time spent in earlier litigation could be excluded under the Act.

Analysis: The assessment for the relevant year had been deemed to have been made on 30.06.2012. The governing principle applied was that, for limitation purposes, what matters is the commencement of reassessment proceedings within the prescribed period, not the date on which such proceedings are completed. As the notice initiating reassessment was issued only on 08.10.2018, it fell beyond six years from the deemed assessment date. The contention based on exclusion of time was also rejected because the statutory exclusion was not shown to relate to the same question of law directly bearing on the reassessment in question.

Conclusion: The reassessment notice was held to be time-barred and was quashed, and the exclusion-of-time contention was rejected.

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