MAHBOOB BI Vs. TAX RECOVERY OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner's late husband, one T. M. Abdul Rahim, was in arrears of income-tax, interest thereon and penalty aggregating to Rs. 4,37,868.29. For recovering the said amount, recovery proceedings were initiated by the income-tax department. A certificate was issued by the Income-tax Officer to the Tax Recovery Officer under Section 222 of the Income-tax Act, 1961, on March 27, 1968, for the recovery of the said amount. In pursuance of the said certificate, the Tax Recovery Officer initiated recovery proceedings. He issued a notice of demand to the defaulter, the said T. M. Abdul Rahim, for the entire arrears under Rule 2 of the Second Schedule to the Income-tax Act, 1961, on May 10, 1968. But, as the defaulter had died even on April 17, 1968, the said notice of demand was returned with the endorsement that the assessee was dead. In spite of this return, the Tax Recovery Officer issued a notice of attachment dated December 26, 1968, in Form No. I.T.C.P. 16 addressed in the name of the deceased defaulter restraining him from alienating seven items of properties said to belong to him. On the same day, he directed the revenue inspector, Ranipet, in Form No. I.T.C.P. 12 to sell the properties in public auction after giving 30 days' notice to the defaulter. He also addressed a notice in Form No. I.T.C.P. 17 on the same day notifying the defaulter that the sale proclamation will be settled on February 23, 1969. Curiously, on the same day, he has also settled the sale proclamation in Form No. I.T.C.P. 13 and sent a copy of the same to the defaulter. According to the petitioner all these notices were found affixed on the door of the house in which she was living. THE petitioner complains that all the above notices are invalid in that they have been addressed to the defaulter who is dead even in April, 1968, that the properties of the defaulter which have been inherited by his legal representatives cannot be attached and sold unless notices of demand and of attachment are given to them as legal representatives of the deceased defaulter and that the attempt to bring the properties in question to sale in pursuance of the above invalid attachment and the proclamation of sale cannot be sustained in the circumstances of this case.

(2.) IN answer it is stated in the counter-affidavit filed on behalf of the respondents that notices of demand were in fact issued to the petitioner and the other legal representatives of the deceased defaulter before the attachment was effected and the sale proclamation was settled. But, on a perusal of the records produced by the respondents, we find that the notices of demand were issued to the legal representatives in Form No. I.T.C.P. 29 only in February, 1969, long after the attachment was effected and the sale proclamation, had been settled in December, 1968.