Correct assessee rule governs income-tax recovery; karta cannot be personally pursued for Hindu undivided family liability.

Income-tax recovery must proceed against the correct assessee, and proceedings addressed to an individual for tax assessed on a Hindu undivided family are without jurisdiction. A karta cannot be subjected to coercive recovery personally merely because he manages the family, since the liability remains that of the family as the taxable entity. After appellate reduction of the demand, the Taxation Laws (Continuation and Validation of Recovery Proceedings) Act validates continuation of recovery on the basis of the original demand notice, so no fresh notice is required on that ground. A discrepancy in the sale proclamation amount did not by itself vitiate the proclamation or create invalidity.

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Issues: (i) whether recovery proceedings could validly be taken against the petitioner in his individual capacity for tax assessed against the Hindu undivided family; (ii) whether, after reduction of tax liability in appeal, a fresh notice of demand was necessary before continuing recovery proceedings; (iii) whether coercive recovery could be directed against the karta personally for tax due from the Hindu undivided family; (iv) whether the sale proclamation was vitiated by the discrepancy in the amount mentioned.

Issue (i): whether recovery proceedings could validly be taken against the petitioner in his individual capacity for tax assessed against the Hindu undivided family.

Analysis: The notices of demand were issued against the Hindu undivided family, but the recovery certificates were addressed to the petitioner personally. The record did not show that recovery was being pursued against the family through its karta. A recovery certificate must follow the assessee against whom the demand subsists, and the change in description indicated that the machinery of recovery had been set in motion against the petitioner as an individual.

Conclusion: The recovery proceedings against the petitioner in his individual capacity were without jurisdiction and invalid.

Issue (ii): whether, after reduction of tax liability in appeal, a fresh notice of demand was necessary before continuing recovery proceedings.

Analysis: Ordinarily, when an assessment is reduced or set aside on appeal, the original notice of demand ceases to support recovery and a fresh notice would be required. However, the Taxation Laws (Continuation and Validation of Recovery Proceedings) Act, by sections 3 and 5, gave retrospective validation to continuation of recovery proceedings on the basis of the original notice of demand despite reduction of the dues on appeal, and treated the statutory scheme as always applicable to such notices.

Conclusion: No fresh notice of demand was required, and the recovery proceedings could not be challenged on that ground.

Issue (iii): whether coercive recovery could be directed against the karta personally for tax due from the Hindu undivided family.

Analysis: The assessee was the Hindu undivided family, which is treated as a distinct taxable entity. Default in payment is the default of the family, not of the karta as a separate person. Recovery provisions authorize coercive steps only against the assessee liable to pay the tax, and not against a member or manager merely because he is the karta.

Conclusion: Coercive recovery could not lawfully be taken against the karta personally for the family's tax liability.

Issue (iv): whether the sale proclamation was vitiated by the discrepancy in the amount mentioned.

Analysis: The discrepancy in the sale proclamation did not establish want of jurisdiction or manifest illegality. The omission to refer to some notices of demand did not by itself invalidate the proclamation, and any error in the figure stated was one that could be corrected by the appropriate authority.

Conclusion: The sale proclamation was not invalidated on that ground.

Final Conclusion: The recovery proceedings failed because they were directed against the wrong person, and the petitioner was entitled to relief in all the connected writ petitions.

Ratio Decidendi: Recovery under the income-tax recovery machinery must be directed against the correct assessee, and a karta cannot be proceeded against personally for the tax liability of a Hindu undivided family merely by reason of his representative position.

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