A single opportunity for a personal hearing suffices under the law if initially provided, with statutory remedies available for any grievances.

J U D G M E N T

C .N. Ramachandran Nair, J Writ Petition is filed on the ground that personal hearing is not granted before finalising the assessment. According to the appellant's counsel the appellant requested for a personal hearing for which no posting was given by the Assessing Officer. However, Government Pleader pointed out that the last portion of the pre-assessment notice shows that the Assessing Officer has given an opportunity for personal hearing along with the opportunity to file an objection within seven days granted by him. A legal question raised by the counsel is whether a second opportunity of hearing should be given by the Assessing Officer after receipt of reply to the pre assessment notice, if the reply was not acceptable to the Officer. This issue is decided by a W.P(C) 23740/2011 Division Bench in Writ Appeal No.1378/2011 dated 2.11.2011 wherein the finding is that when opportunity for hearing at the time of filing reply was given a second round of notice is not required for the purpose of hearing alone. However, the finding of the Division Bench is that the personal hearing if sought, should be granted to the party. In any case, even if assessment is completed violating principles of natural justice the appellant has an effective remedy by way of appeal to the statutory authority who has the full powers of the Assessing Officer to modify assessment and to grant relief to the assessee. In this case, we notice that specific proposals were made in the pre assessment notice and the petitioner filed a detailed objection. It is seen that even though only seven days time was granted, assessment is actually completed much after and after referring to all the objections. the petitioner could have appeared before the officer any time before completing of assessment and raised his oral arguments if he wanted. However, they W.P(C) 23740/2011 did not do it in any case. Since the officer has considered the objections and rejected the same, we do not think the granting of one more opportunity before the officer will serve any purpose. Appellant can and should therefore pursue the remedy by way of statutory appeal. Without going into the merits of the challenge against assessment we dismiss the appeal leaving it open to the petitioner to file statutory appeal and if the time is over petitioner is granted two weeks time from the date of receipt of copy of this judgment for filing statutory appeal.