Limitation on reassessment under sales tax law applies to revisional orders when they function as fresh assessments.

The thirty-six month limitation in the second proviso to section 12(6) of the Orissa Sales Tax Act, 1947 was treated as an independent time bar on assessment of tax due under the Act. An assessment made in revision under section 23(3) was regarded as a fresh assessment exercising the assessment power, so the limitation applied to revisional reassessment as well as original assessment. Orders made beyond that period were therefore barred by limitation. A dissenting view held that the proviso did not govern revisional orders, but the majority approach prevailed in sustaining the quashing of the delayed assessment orders.

---

---

Issues: (i) Whether the thirty-six month limit in the second proviso to section 12(6) of the Orissa Sales Tax Act, 1947 applied to an order of assessment made by the revising authority under section 23(3).

Issue (i): Whether the thirty-six month limit in the second proviso to section 12(6) of the Orissa Sales Tax Act, 1947 applied to an order of assessment made by the revising authority under section 23(3).

Analysis: The majority held that the proviso, though placed in section 12(6), was in substance an independent limitation provision governing any order assessing tax due under the Act. An order made in revision under section 23(3) was treated as a fresh assessment exercising the assessment power under section 12, and if the limitation were confined only to original assessments it would create an anomalous result and leave appellate or revisional reassessment without any real statutory time-control.

Conclusion: Yes. The thirty-six month limitation applied to revisional assessment orders, and the impugned orders made beyond that period were barred by limitation.

Dissenting Opinion: SARKAR, J. held that section 12(7) did not govern revisional orders and that the proviso in section 12(6) could not be used to strike down revisional orders made under section 23(3). On that view, the appeals should have been allowed.

Final Conclusion: The assessment orders made in revision beyond thirty-six months could not be sustained, so the High Court's quashing of those orders was upheld.

Ratio Decidendi: A statutory time-limit framed as a limitation on assessment of tax due applies to revisional or appellate reassessment orders where those orders effectively exercise the assessment power under the Act, unless the statute clearly restricts the limit to original assessments alone.

---