As far as the present case is concerned, none of the circumstances were narrated by the assessee either before the Assessing Officer or before the Appellate Authority concerned in support of the contention that the claim for allowance should not be disallowed. The mere circumstance, that the amount had been remitted to the account of the payee, would not be a good ground to accept the case of the assessee that Section 40A(3) of the Act will not applied to the case.
In the reopened assessment, the AO has taken the view that the amount in fact did not represent any capital gains on sale of shares, but represented the undisclosed income of the assessee brought in by means of an accommodation entry given by My Money Security Pvt. Ltd. Accordingly he brought the amount to tax with the narration undisclosed income introduced under guise of short term capital gains.
When the Settlement Commission examines an application in terms of statutory powers and finds that such application does not satisfy the legal requirements, as contained in section 245C(1) of the Act, in our view, unless such decision of the Commission is contrary to the statutory provisions contained in the Act, interference in exercise of writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India would not be warranted.
We find that both the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) as well as the Tribunal have arrived at a finding of fact that Assessing officer did not have any reasonable belief to come to the conclusion that that there has been any escapement for the assessment year 2003-04. The order of MERC dated 01.07.2004 specifically deals with regard to fixing of the tariff rate at which power has to be supplied to the consumer.
The case of the petitioners is that the impugned explanation below sub-section (13) to section 80IA provides for a levy of tax which was hitherto unknown. It is, therefore, urged that the Court should examine the reasonableness of such provision particularly when the same is brought into operation with retrospective effect. Section 80IA(4) provides for deduction under certain circumstances. If such deductions are withdrawn with retrospective effect, surely there would be a case of providing for a levy which was till then not known.
The Assessing Officer while reassessing the respondent by an order dated 26/3/2002 has in fact taken a ground different from the grounds in the reasons recorded for reopening the assessment under Section 148 of the said Act. The reasons furnished for reopening the assessment alleged that non fund income had been shown in fund based income so as to avail of a higher deduction.
In the present case, the Ld. AO made changes in the original order by invoking sec 154 based on evidences and disallowed a certain sum of expenditure which were related to previous years and as told found to be of capital in nature too. On appeal to CIT by the assessee, an order was passed for providing an opportunity of being heard to the assessee.
‘In the United States, these ‘fact-cases’ are likened to railroad-tickets: ‘valid for single journey only’. The Americans are not greatly enamoured (as we or the British are) about precedent, and every ten or fifteen years they appoint a body of very learned and wise lawyers, who go into the hundreds of cases reported in all the decisions across the United States and then come up with what is called a ‘restatement’ of the law on every possible topic. After the restatement, no case can be cited of a period prior to the restatement, and a large body of useless case law gets confined to the dustbin of legal history.’
We find that the findings of the Tribunal on the assessment was not on the ground of treating the claim as not bona fide. We find that the assessment on the consumption of bottles made on the ground of alleged non-existence of two firms was rejected by the Tribunal by rendering a finding that the suppliers were very much in existence. On the 2% addition made to the bottles sent direct to the factory without entering into the books of accounts and on the price difference,
The CIT adverted to the fact that the quantum appeal had been rejected by the CIT (A) and the ITAT. That in itself would not amount to a valid justification for imposition of a penalty. Before a penalty is imposed, the requirements of Section 271 must be established. Accordingly, it would have been open to the Court to set aside the impugned order in its entirety and to remand the proceedings back to the assessing officer for fresh consideration.
