2011 (8) TMI 1042

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....068 and attaching the bills pending with the third and fourth respondents. The petitioner is a firm in the business of securing and executing P.W.D., R and B and other contract works and in executing works on sub-contracting basis. The firm was incorporated in 1994 and is a registered dealer on the rolls of the second respondent. On the death of the husband of the deponent on April 18, 2002, the firm was dissolved and a new firm was reconstituted on October 28, 2003, a fact informed to the second respondent vide letter dated May 28, 2005, asserted to have been acknowledged by the second respondent; a fact not disputed in the counter-affidavit. On October 30, 2002, the assessment of tax under the Andhra Pradesh General Sales Tax Act, 1957....

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....the dealer. As the primary order of assessment was passed on October 30, 2002 and served on the petitioner on November 5, 2002, the revisional order could be passed exercising power under section 20(2) of the Act only within four years from November 5, 2002, i.e., by November 4, 2006, is the contention. Counsel relied upon several decisions to contend that since the revisional order passed by the first respondent was not served on it, it must be presumed that the order was passed beyond the period of limitation. In State of Andhra Pradesh v. M. Ramakishtaiah & Co., Khetmal [1994] 93 STC 406 (SC), the Supreme Court was considering a fact-situation where the revisional order was communicated much beyond the period of four years prescrib....

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.... November 20, 1995, admittedly, it was served on the appellant on August 3, 1996. We find from the record that the said order reached the Commercial Tax Office concerned on July 27, 1996, as the stamp on the top of the order bears out and thereafter it was sent for service to the appellant who received the same on August 3, 1996. Thus, there is a time lag of more than eight months between the purported date on which the impugned revisional order was passed and the date on which it was served on the assessee. The reason for such inordinate delay remains unexplained. Even after perusal of the relevant record, the learned Government Pleader is not in a position to tell us as to what caused such extraordinary delay. . ." Similar presumption,....