Case: Kunwar Trivikram Narain Singh Vs. State Of Uttar Pradesh And Others

2. The facts are simple and they are as follows: On January 10, 1953, for the assessment year 1952-53, the Additional Collector, Banaras, assesssed the appellant to agricultural income-tax under the U. P. Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1948 (U. P. Act III of 1949). On February 9, 1956, U. P. Agricultural Income-tax (Amendment) Ordinance, 1956 (Ordinance 2 of 1956) was passed enacting that the word "Collector" shall always be deemed to include Additional Collector. That Ordinance was later replaced by the U. P. Agricultural Income-tax (Amendment) Act XIV of 1956. On an application filed by the appellant, the Collector by his order dated May 9, 1956, revoked his earlier order and directed the Additional Collector to proceed to assess the appellant in accordance with law. Thereupon, the Additional Collector resumed proceedings and on June 7, 1956 passed a fresh assessment order imposing a tax of Rs. 42,761 on the appellant, and on July 4, 1956, he issued a notice to the appellant for payment of the tax. On August 7, 1956, the appellant filed a petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution in the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad for quashing the order of assessment and the notice issued pursuant thereto. The petition was heard, in the first instance, by Tandon, J., who dismissed the same with costs. The appeal preferred by the appellant against that order to a Division Bench of the said Court was also dismissed. Hence the present appeal.

Reasoning: 7.A combined reading of the said provisions establishes that if an application for review was filed within the time prescribed, the previous proceedings would be restored and the parties would be relegated to the position which they had occupied before the proceedings were quashed on the ground of want of jurisdiction.8. In this case proceedings were initiated by the Additional Collector on January 10, 1953, for the purpose of assessing the appellant for the assessment year 1952-53. There was no flaw in the said proceedings except that the Additional Collector was not authorized by Act III of 1949, as it then stood, to make the said assessment. The Collector quashed those proceeding by his order dated November 26, 1955. After the Amending Act wad passed, within 90 days therefrom the appropriate income-tax authority had filed an application before the Collector to review his order. The Collector reviewed the order and set aside the same. The result was that the proceeding before the Additional Collector was restored. As by the amendment the Additional Collector must be deemed to have been the Collector from the inception of the Principal Act itself, the said proceedings must be deemed to have been initiated before the proper authority under the Principal Act. In this view no question of limitation could possibly arise, for the proceedings were initiated in time and must be deemed to have been pending throughout and the fresh assessment was made in the saidwe are dealing with an Act whose constitutionality is not questioned. It has expressly conferred power on the appropriate authority to review its previous order if an Application was filed within the time prescribed. When once that power of review was exercised, the proceedings were reopened. In this view no question of the application of an amending Act to a barred claim would arise.The second point was not raised in the High Court. We did not permit the learned counsel to raise the point for the first time before us.