Unqualified "assessed" includes provisional assessment where the statute does not expressly limit the term.

The expression "any person who has not hitherto been assessed" in section 18A(3) of the Income-tax Act, 1922 was understood to include a person provisionally assessed under section 23B. The analysis treats "assessed" as an unqualified term covering both provisional and regular assessment unless the statute expressly narrows it. The scheme of section 18A distinguishes provisional and regular assessments where intended, including references in later sub-sections, which supports the broader reading. Later provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1961 do not control the meaning of the earlier provision.

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Issues: Whether the expression "any person who has not hitherto been assessed" in section 18A(3) of the Income-tax Act, 1922 includes a person who has only been provisionally assessed under section 23B of that Act.

Analysis: The expression "assessed" in section 18A(3) was used without any qualification limiting it to a regular assessment. A provisional assessment under section 23B still involves a determination of total income, though on a summary basis, and the statutory scheme of section 18A itself shows that Parliament distinguished between provisional and regular assessment wherever it intended to do so. The presence of references to provisional assessment in section 18A(5) and repeated references to regular assessment in later sub-sections indicated that no restrictive meaning could be read into the unqualified word "assessed". The later provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1961 did not control the meaning of the earlier provision, and they did not justify cutting down the ordinary scope of section 18A(3).

Conclusion: A person provisionally assessed under section 23B is included within section 18A(3); the liability to interest and penalty was therefore valid.

Ratio Decidendi: An unqualified reference to a person who has been "assessed" in a taxing statute includes both provisional and regular assessment unless the statute expressly restricts the term.

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