Assam General Sales Tax Act, 1993 – ss.19, 21 – Time limit for completion of assessment and re-assessments – Assessment in certain cases – Earlier assessments for the three years held to be time-barred, yet, the revenue having obtained appropriate sanction from the Commissioner, the limitation thereafter would be governed by s.21, upheld by the High Court – Correctness:
Held: In construing fiscal statutes and in determining the liability of a subject to tax one must have regard to the strict letter of law – If, the case is not covered within the four corners of the provisions of the taxing statute, no tax can be imposed by inference or by analogy or by trying to probe into the intentions of the legislature and by considering what was the substance of the matter – On facts, assessments undertaken for the three years were already held to be invalid because of being time barred, in view of s.19 – Later, by virtue of obtaining sanction from the Commissioner, the revenue could not have taken recourse to s.21 to say that the reassessment within four years is permissible with prior sanction from the Commissioner – s.21 would apply only in cases where no assessment has been made under any of the provisions of the Act within the time limits specified in s.19 – Interpretation of the two provisions by the High Court completely incorrect, and the order passed by the High Court set aside. [Paras 12-14]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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