Formal assessment order is required before VAT reassessment; deemed assessment alone cannot justify reopening or consequential penalty.

Reassessment under the Chhattisgarh VAT Act requires a prior formal assessment order, because the power under Section 22(1) runs from the date of an actual assessment order and cannot be triggered by a deemed assessment alone. A return acknowledgment under Rule 20 is not equivalent to an assessment order and does not create jurisdiction to reopen the matter. Once reassessment lacked jurisdiction, the consequential penalty under Section 22(2) also could not stand. The impugned reassessment and penalty orders were therefore unsustainable.

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Issues: Whether reassessment under Section 22(1) of the Chhattisgarh Value Added Tax Act, 2005 could be initiated where the dealer's assessment had resulted only in a deemed assessment and no formal order of assessment had been passed.

Analysis: The governing statutory scheme required an assessment or reassessment order to exist before the power of reassessment under Section 22(1) could be exercised. The phrase "from the date of order of assessment" was treated as significant, because the limitation period of five calendar years necessarily runs from an actual order of assessment. In the absence of a formal assessment order, the matter remained one of deemed assessment, which could not be reopened under Section 22(1). The connected penalty under Section 22(2) also could not survive once the reassessment itself lacked jurisdiction. The reference to return-filing acknowledgments under Rule 20 of the Chhattisgarh Value Added Tax Rules, 2006 did not alter the position, because an acknowledgment of return could not be equated with an assessment order.

Conclusion: Reassessment under Section 22(1) was impermissible in the absence of a prior assessment order, and the reassessment and consequential penalty orders were unsustainable.

Final Conclusion: The writ petition succeeded, and the impugned orders were set aside because the reassessment machinery could not be invoked against a deemed assessment without a prior formal assessment order.

Ratio Decidendi: The power of reassessment under the VAT Act is conditioned upon the existence of a formal assessment order, and a deemed assessment cannot by itself furnish the jurisdictional basis for reopening or consequential penalty.

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