CHICKOTAPPA B Vs. INCOME TAX OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE common question of law raised in these writ petitions is :

(2.) IT arises in this way. The petitioners in Writ Petitions Nos. 3417 and 3419 of 1968 were partners in four firms during the accounting period relevant to the asst. yr. 1961-62. The petitioner in Writ Petition No. 3418 of 1968 was a partner during the said year in three firms. They were assessed by the assessment orders made on February 27, 1962, on the basis of the returns furnished and also on the basis that the firms in which they were partners were all registered firms. At the time of the assessment of the petitioners in Writ Petitions Nos. 3417 and 3419 of 1968, an application for registration of one of the firms in which the said petitioners were partners, viz., M/s Srinivasa Textiles, was pending. Similarly, the application for registration of M/s Lalitha Silk Throwing Factory in which the petitioner in Writ Petition No. 3418 of 1968 was a partner was also pending. The applications for registration of the said firms, however, were ultimately rejected. In the assessment order passed on February 27, 1962, the assessee's share income of the firms was provisionally accepted subject to subsequent rectification. Subsequently, the ITO (respondent) made separate orders on August 13, 1968, in the case of each of these petitioners under s. 35 of the Indian IT Act, 1922, hereinafter called "the Act". Under the said orders the share of loss of the petitioners in Writ Petitions Nos. 3417 and 3419 of 1968 from M/s Srinivasa Textiles which was an unregistered firm was not set-off against the share of profits from the registered firms and they were assessed accordingly disregarding the share of loss of the unregistered firm. Similarly, in the case of the petitioner in Writ Petition No. 3418 of 1968, his share of loss from the unregistered firm, M/s Lalitha Silk Throwing Factory, was disregarded while computing his total income.

(3.) FOR the above reasons, these writ petitions fail and are dismissed. In the circumstances, no costs.