and continued its existence, contained in his letter to 1 9 9 60 the Income Tax Officer in February, 1945, still held E M. Muthappa good J!.lld was backed up by the proceedings he took in · Chettiar the Civil Courts to maintain that stand. No doubt, v. his claim had not been upheld by the Subordinate The Income-tax Judge, but by the appeal that he filed, he rendered the _Officer, speciai d '11 th d , . f th H' h Circle, Coimhatort matter res su b ·JU. d' we an t1 e ec1s10n o e 1g __ Court in 1953, the. appellant could not obviously sug· Ayyangar J. gest any particular date It'> the date of the dissolution. The submission. of learned Counsel which proceeds on the assumption that there was a dissolution of the firm on March 4, 1943 ; or on March 10, 1949-which was the date fixed by the J-figh Court by its judgment of 1953, has to be rejected as wholly inconsistent with the contentions urged by the appellant in the Civil suit and the appeal therefrom. In the circumstances, the Income Tax Officer could not be blamed for treat. ing the f:i,-m as in existence and similarly the Excess Profits Tax Otricer also. It was common ground that at the date the Excess Profits Tax Officer started proceedings for assessment, the appellant had filed an appeal against the judgment of the Subordinat.e Judge in U. S. 50 of 1946 and the same was pending in the High Court and that it was only in 1953 that the appeal was disposed of. The contention now urged before us was, that as the High Court had held that the firm should be treated as having been dissolved as and from March 10, 1949, the issue of any notice to Thyagra.jan Chettiar as the managing partner of the firm was invalid and the assessment proceedings com. pleted on that basi8 would also be illegal. If the conwntion of the appellant were to prevail it would mean that the validity or otherwise of the assessment order would be retrospectively determined by the result of the appellant's appeal which was pending before the High Court, so that if the High Court had held that the firm should be treated as dissolved only on the date of its judgment in 1953, the assessment would be valid but that if the High Court had fixed the date" of dissolution on some date earlier than Maroh 31, 1951, the assessment would be deemed invalid. This argu· ment has only to be stated to be rejeoted. When this
