- (1.) THESE are four revision applications by the assesses u/sec. 14 of the Rajasthan Sales Tax Act, 1954 against the order dated 29-10-68 by the Dy. Commissioner, Commercial Taxes ( Appeals II ) Jaipur in respect of assessments for the years 1960 61, 1961-62, 1962-63 and 1963 64 in. the case of M/s Agarwal Trading Co. , Bharatpur.
(2.) THE Dy. Commissioner rejected four appeals in respect of the assessments on the point of limitation. I have heard learned counsel for the assessee and the departmental representative, and gone through the record. Learned counsel for the assessee argued that in the case of assessments, limitation for filing appeals, no doubt, runs from the date of service of demand notice, as laid down in sec. 12 of the Act but according to R. 31 of the Rajasthan Sales Tax Rules, the demand notice is required to be served 'alongwith a certified copy of the assessment order'. This is a mandatory provision. Unless the demand notice is accompanied by a certified copy of the assessment order, there is no proper service of the demand notice. In the present case, he said, the demand notices, unaccompanied by copies of assessment orders, were served on 24 9 66 and the assessment orders were separately served on 17-10-68. The service required by R. 31 could not, therefore be deemed to be complete until 17-10-66 and limitation would run from that date. The departmental representative said that according to sec. 13 of the Act, limitation runs from the date of service of demand notice, and even if the notice was not accompanied by assessment order, this will have no effect on the limitation aspect. In this case, however, he said there is nothing to show that the demand notices served were not accompanied by assessment orders The copies of assessment orders acknowledged by the assessee on 17-10 66 may have been extra copies. He invited attention to the following words appearing in the order of the Deputy Commissioner: - "on examination of assessment record it is established that the assessment orders and demand notices of all the four years were served on the assessee on 24-9-64. There is obvious typing error in the year, which should be '66' and not '64', and the service of demand notices and assessment orders was that held by the Dy. Commissioner to be established as having been on 24-9 66. He said that if the assessee's case was that the two were not served together on 24-9-66, he should have raised the matter before the Dy. Commissioner. The fact that he did not do so showed that this is an after thought, taking advantage of the acknowledgments dated 17-10-66 on office copies of the assessment orders. These acknowledgments cannot be proof that the demand notices served on 24-9 66 were not accompanied by copies of assessment orders. When an authority under the Act does something he should be presumed to have done it in accordance with the provisions of law unless the contrary is proved. The assessing authority should, therefore, be deemed to have served on 24-9-66 the demand notices with assessment orders, and not only demand notices. Learned counsel for the assessee in his rejoinder said that in the acknowledgments on the demand notices, the assessee has acknowledged only the demand notice mentioning this in words The demand notices does not refer to any 'enclosure' although when anything is enclosed, with the demand notice or any other document, it is usual and necessary to mention the fact. It must be presumed, therefore, that the demand notices were served alone. The acknow-ledgment of copy of assessment orders by the assessee on 17-10-66 is added proof that assessment orders were separately served later on. There is no warrant to allege that this acknowledgment is not for the copies which should have gone with the demand notices, or is otherwise spurious. The matter was not raised before the Dy. Commissioner, he said, as the question had not arisen during the proceedings before him in this form. The sentence in the Dy. Commissioner's order referred to by the departmental representative had been inserted at the order stage and the fact mentioned in it had not come up during the hearing. As shown now, there is nothing on the record to justify this observation of the Dy. Commissioner. It is based on no evidence. In any case, he said there is a question of law, involved namely whether service of mere demand notice, without copy of assessment orders, is proper service under the law, and it can be raised at any stage. That it was not raised before the Dy. Commissioner is no bar to its being raised here. I have considered the matter. I agree with learned counsel for the assessee that limitation for appeal must be deemed to run from the date of service of demand notice in the manner provided in rule 31, i. e. along with assessment order. If the two are served separately on different dates, as it sometirnes may be due to accidental omission to serve them together or for any other reason, the later of the two dates Will be the date of completed service. The purpose of the rule is that when the assessee gets the demand notice, he must also have before him the assessment order on which the notice is based, so that he knows the reasons for the demand, and may be in a position to consider whether to ask for a stay of the demand, to go in appeal against it and if so on what grounds, or to take other action in the light of the assessment order. This would not be possible if he has only the bare demand notice before him. The fact that the rule provides for a certified copy of the assessment order indicates that the opportunity for appeal was clearly in view. The acknowledgment on the demand notices in this case are to the effect that "although Shri Rajani {the ACTO) had asked us not to accept the demand notice, the acknowledgment is clearly for 'demand notice' and for nothing else. The C. T. I. who executed service has also referred in his compliance report only to 'demand notice'. There is nothing to indicate that the demand notices were accompanied by assessment orders. The date of acknowledgment of copies of assessment orders appearing on the office copies of the assessment orders is 17-10-66. There is no ground to attach any other meaning to this except that the copies of the assessment orders, required to be served with the demand notices, were served separately on that date. Following the view taken by me in para above, this would mean that service should be deemed to have been completed on 17-10-66. The Dy. Commissioner has, no doubt, observed in his order that it was established from record that the assessment orders and demand notices were served on 14 9-66. I have been unable to find any basis on the record for this finding. The revision applications are, therefore, accepted and the four cases are remanded to the appellate authority for reexamination in the light of observations in this order, and passing a fresh order regarding limitation on the basis of such examination. If on this basis the appeals are found to be within limitation, the hearing on merits should be proceeded with without delay. .;