Escaped turnover can be reopened under U.P. VAT reassessment powers within the extended limitation period.

Turnover that has escaped assessment may be reopened under section 29 of the U.P. VAT Act, 2008, and the Commissioner may authorise reassessment within the extended period under section 29(7). The three-year normal limitation under section 29(3) does not exhaust the reassessment power where the statutory conditions for escaped turnover are met. The absence of an earlier assessment order does not, by itself, prevent use of the reassessment machinery where the year's turnover was found to have escaped assessment. The authorisation was therefore treated as valid and the challenge failed.

---

---

Issues: Whether authorisation for assessment or reassessment under section 29(7) of the U.P. VAT Act, 2008 could be granted where the turnover for the relevant assessment year had escaped assessment and no assessment order had been passed under the entry tax regime.

Analysis: Section 29(1) authorises assessment or reassessment where turnover has escaped assessment, been under assessed, or has otherwise not been brought to tax. Section 29(3) prescribes the normal limitation period of three years, while section 29(7) permits authorisation by the Commissioner and extends the period up to eight years after expiry of the assessment year. The legal distinction drawn from earlier authority was confined to cases where remand had left the matter entirely open and no assessment order existed in consequence of the remand. On the facts here, the authority recorded that the assessment for the relevant year had escaped notice and that the extended limitation under section 29(7) was therefore available. In such a situation, the absence of an assessment order did not bar invocation of the reassessment machinery.

Conclusion: The authorisation was held valid and the challenge failed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where turnover for an assessment year has escaped assessment, the Commissioner may authorise reassessment within the extended period under section 29(7), and the reassessment power is not excluded merely because the turnover had not earlier been assessed.

---