A reassessment proceeding under Section 18(1) of the Bihar Sales Tax Act, 1959, can only be initiated if the assessing officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the assessee has escaped assessment or that the assessee's turnover has been under-assessed or assessed at a lower rate than that which was correctly applicable.

Ashwini Kumar Sinha, J.

1. These three taxation cases relate to the reassessment orders for the periods 1960-61, 1961-62 and 1962-63. In pursuance of this Courts orders in ^he aforesaid taxation cases, the Commercial Tax Tribunal, Bihar, Patna, has submitted a consolidated statement of case and has referred the following questions for the opinion of this Court under Sec.33(3) of the Bihar Sales Tax Act, 1959 :

(1) Whether memo No. 3115 dated 25th October, 1965 which reads please refer to your sales tax cases for the period from 1st July, 1959 to 31st March, 1963. You are, hereby, requested to produce your books of accounts for the above periods on 13th December, 1965, is a notice as required under Section 18(1) of the Bihar Sales Tax Act, 1959 ?

(2) If the answer to question No. 1 be in the negative, is the assessment order passed in pursuance of the said memo legal and valid ?

2. As these questions are common in all the three taxation cases, they are answered by this common judgment.

3. The assessee, M/s. Usha Sales (Pvt.) Ltd., was assessed to pay tax under the Bihar Sales Tax Act, 1959 (hereinafter called as the Act), for the periods 1960-61 to 1964-65 vide different assessment orders. We are not concerned with the assessment orders relating to 1963-64 and 1964-65. The assessee (dealer) preferred an appeal before the Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (Appeals), Tirhut Division, for the assessment period 1963-64 only (with which we are not concerned, as stated above). The Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (Appeals) remanded the case for re-examination and assessment in the light of the observations made by him in his order dated 25th July, 1967. Thereafter the assessee (dealer) was assessed by a revised assessment order dated 9th February, 1968.

4. In respect of the original assessment made for the periods in question, i.e., 1960-61, 1961-62 and 1962-63, the assessing officer considered that the dealer had escaped assessment on certain turnover and as such he issued a notice in the form of memo No. 3115 dated 25th October, 1965 (as quoted above) to the dealer. The dealer in response to the notice produced his account books and was reassessed for the said periods by a separate assessment orders dated 15th January, 1968 under Sec.18(1) of the Act.

5. The assessee (dealer) as against the reassessment orders for the periods in question, preferred separate appeals before the Deputy Commissioner (Appeals); in other words, the assessee (dealer) preferred appeals against the reassessment orders as well as against orders for the periods with which we are not concerned. All the five appaals were made analogus and heard together. The Deputy Commissioner (Appeals), by order dated 22nd December, 1971 dismissed all the appeals with some modifications.

6. Aggrieved by the appellate order as just mentioned above, the assessee (dealer) filed revisional applications before the Tribunal. The dealer made two grievances. The first grievance related to the common point in all the assessments orders, i.e., 1960-61 to 1964-65, and this grievance was with regard to the percentage of depreciation to be allowed by the assessing officer and the appellate authority on the original price of the articles to arrive at a sale price on the date of hire purchase transaction fructified into sale.

7. In the present taxation cases, we are not concerned with this grievance of the assessee (dealer).

8. The second grievance related to the reassessment of the alleged escaped turnover under Sec.18(1) of the Act for which the memo as quoted above was issued. In that memo the mention of Sec.18 was not there and the grievance was that the Assessing Officer had no jurisdiction to sit over reassessment because of lack of jurisdiction and hence the order was bad in law.

9. The Tribunal held that the aforesaid memo which was, in the opinion of the Tribunal, a notice was legally valid and hence the Tribunal dismissed the revisional applications. The Tribu