Sarkar, J. - (1.) These appeals raise the question whether the Orissa Sales Tax Act, 1947 sets a time limit for making an order under S. 23(3) of the Act revising an order of assessment. The question depends on the interpretation of some of the provisions of the Act to which reference will be made in due course.
(2.) The facts are these. The respondents had been assessed to sales tax under the Act in respect of various quarters by a Sales Tax Officer. They appealed to the Assistant Collector of Sales Tax against the assessments contending that the Sales Tax Officer had wrongly rejected their claim to certain deductions from their taxable turnover. The appeals were allowed. Subsequently the Orissa High Court delivered a judgment in another case from which it appeared that the Assistant Collector was wrong in allowing the deductions. Thereupon the Collector of Sales Tax acting under S. 23(3) of the Act which provided that "the Collector may, upon application or of his own motion, revise any order passed under this Act .... by a person appointed under S. 3 to assist him" revised the orders of the Assistant Collector by raising the taxable turnover allowed by him to be deducted.
(3.) The respondents moved the High Court of Orissa under Art. 226 of the Constitution to quash the orders of the Collector in revision on the ground that they were illegal under the Act as they had been made more than thirty-six months after the expiry of the quarters in respect of which the assessments had originally been made. This contention was accepted by the High Court. Hence these appeals.;