GST assessment against a deceased registered person requires notice to legal heirs and hearing before any valid recovery action.

Assessment proceedings under the GST Act may continue after the death of a registered person only if the legal heirs are intimated and given an opportunity to object, and their exposure is limited to the deceased's assets. An assessment order passed without awareness of the death, and without the statutory notice-and-hearing safeguard, is unsustainable; any consequential recovery notice also falls with it. The proceedings were therefore set aside and remanded for fresh assessment after notice to the petitioner and a hearing.

---

---

Issues: Whether an assessment order and recovery notice issued after the death of the registered person could be sustained, and whether proceedings could continue only by giving notice and hearing to the legal heirs within the limits prescribed by law.

Analysis: Section 93 of the Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 permits continuation of assessment proceedings against a deceased registered person, but only upon intimation to the legal heirs and affording them an opportunity to object. The liability of the legal heirs is confined to the assets of the deceased. In the present case, the assessment order did not reflect awareness of the death of the registered person and appeared to have been passed against a dead person. The recovery notice was also consequential to such defective assessment. Since the statutory safeguard of notice and hearing to the legal heirs was not followed, the proceedings could not be sustained.

Conclusion: The assessment order and recovery notice were set aside, and the matter was remanded for fresh assessment proceedings after notice to the petitioner and an opportunity of hearing.

Final Conclusion: The decision protects the statutory requirement that proceedings after the death of a registered person must proceed only in accordance with the notice and hearing safeguards, with liability confined to the deceased's estate.

Ratio Decidendi: Assessment proceedings against a deceased registered person are valid only if the legal heirs are notified and heard, and any order passed without such compliance is unsustainable.

---