( 1 ) THIS is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution, the circumstances in which it has been filed being shortly as follows :

( 2 ) ON 31-3-1955, the respondent, who is the Income-tax Officer, A Ward, Sitapur, issued two notices under Section 34, Income-tax Act, to the petitioners who are five in number. The address of the petitioners was given in each of these notices as being care of Messrs. Pushkar Mal Sagar mal, Nai Bazar, Lakhimpur Kheri, within this State. The notices (which were the same in form) stated that the respondent had reason to believe that the. income of the petitioners assessable to income-tax for the year ending 31-3-1947 had both escaped assessment and had been under-assessed, that he proposed to assess such income and it called upon the petitioners to deliver within the time stated in the notices a return of their total income and total world income assessable to income-tax for the year ending 31-8-1947. These notices, it is to be observed, were issued by the respondent on the last day of the maximum period of eight years within which a notice may be issued under Section 34 of the Act.

( 3 ) ONE of these notices was sent by post and was delivered on the following day, the 1st April, to sri Banarsi Das, a partner of the firm Pushkar Mal Sagar Mal. The learned Standing Counsel does not contend that this constituted service on the asses-sees or any of them. The other notice was delivered on the same day, the 31st March, by a peon in the service of the Income-tax department to one Maha-bir Prasad who is a son of Ham Deo the second petitioner. It is not in dispute that at that time the first and second respondents resided in Jhajhar in Jaipur and that the other three respondents resided at Kan-pur. Mahabir Prasad forwarded the notice to his father at Jhajhar who received it on the 22nd April.

( 4 ) A reply to this notice was sent by the second petitioner to the respondent on the 27th April. In his reply this petitioner stated that the petitioner did not do any business together as members of a joint family or as an association of persons and that they had never carried on any business together at any time; but as a precautionary measure he submitted "under protest and without prejudice" a return showing that no income had been received. This petitioner stated further that the petitioners were not liable to assessment and that the notice which had been served upon mahabir Prasad wands not a valid notice.

( 5 ) ON the 9th June the respondent issued a notice to the petitioners under Section 23 (2) of the act requiring them to attend at his office at Sitapur on 20-6-1955. This notice was addressed, as had been the earlier notice, to the petitioners care of Pushkar Mal Sagar Mal, Lakhimpur, thereafter counsel for the petitioners sought to obtain some information from the respondent as to the income which it was said had escaped assessment or had been under-assessed, but without success. It seems however that the proposed proceedings under Section 34 related to certain payments made in 1945 to two banks in Jaipur by the petitioners as trustees under a deed of trust executed by the petitioners on 28-8-1945. "on the 30th June the respondent issued a further notice under section 23 (2) fixing the 29th July for the attendance botore him on the petitioners and the production of the evidence oil which their return had been based, It is not clear what happened on that date save that the respondent issued a notice to counsel appearing for the petitioners under Section 23 (3) requiring the production of evidence with reference to certain matters.

( 6 ) ON the 20th August the respondent referred the question of his jurisdiction to assess the petitioners to the Commissioner of Income-tax but no order appears to have been made by the 18th October on which date this petition was filed, the reliefs which the petitioners seek being, first, the issue of a writ of certiorari to quash the notice under Section 34 o