Representative notice requirement governs escaped gift-tax proceedings after a donor's death; individual notice to an heir is invalid.

Where escaped gift-tax proceedings concern a deceased donor, jurisdiction lies only by proceeding against the executor, administrator or other legal representative under section 19 of the Gift-tax Act, 1958. A notice issued after the donor's death merely under section 16(1) to one heir in an individual capacity, without making clear that it is issued representatively and without bringing all persons interested in the estate before the proceedings, is jurisdictionally defective. Such a defect is not cured by section 292B of the Income-tax Act, 1961, because it is a failure to invoke the proper statutory provision rather than a technical irregularity.

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Issues: Validity of notice issued under section 16(1) of the Gift-tax Act, 1958 after the donor's death, and whether assessment proceedings could stand without proceeding against the legal representatives under section 19 of the Gift-tax Act, 1958.

Analysis: The notice was issued after the donor had died and was addressed to the assessee as if she were the taxable person in her own right. The statutory scheme of section 19 requires that where the donor is dead, proceedings for escaped gift-tax must be taken against the executor, administrator, or other legal representative, and the notice must be issued in a manner consistent with assessment of the deceased's estate. Since gift-tax, if any, was recoverable from the estate of the deceased and not from the donee as such, notice to only one heir, without making clear that it was issued in a representative capacity and without notice to all persons interested in the estate, did not satisfy the jurisdictional requirements. Section 292B of the Income-tax Act, 1961 could not cure this defect because the notice was not merely a technical irregularity but a failure to invoke the proper statutory provision.

Conclusion: The notice was invalid and without jurisdiction, and the assessment based on it could not be sustained; the issue is decided in favour of the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the donor is and the proposed gift-tax assessment concerns escaped gifts of the deceased, jurisdiction can be validly assumed only by proceeding under section 19 of the Gift-tax Act, 1958 against the legal representatives of the estate, and a notice issued merely under section 16(1) to one heir in an individual capacity is invalid and cannot be cured by section 292B of the Income-tax Act, 1961.

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