DEEPCHAND KISHANLAL Vs. COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) M/s. Deepchand Kishanlal, a registered partnership firm, having its business office at present at No. 2, Ali Askar Road Bangalore City, represented by one Vinay Kumar Poddar, one of the partners of the said firm, is the common petitioner before me. The petitioner was originally an assessee on the file of the Income-tax Officer, CC-XIV, Calcutta ("ITO-C"), but is now borne on the file of the Income-tax Officer, Central Circle-III, Bangalore ("ITO-B").

(2.) FOR the assessment years 1967-68 and 1968-69 relevant to the accounting years ending on December 31, 1966, and December 31, 1967, respectively, the petitioner filed its returns under the Income-tax Act of 1961, before the ITO-C, inter alia, disclosing a credit of Rs. 45,000 on March 31, 1964, from M/s. Karnataka Mining Company (P.) Limited for payment to M/s. Murari Trading Company of which one Murarilal Kedia was a partner and a sum of Rs. 57,600 as credit on September 30, 1967, from the mother of one Murarilal Kedia. On those credits, the petitioner claimed that they were not taxable on the plea that they were only recoveries of earlier written-off bad debts of a partnership firm called M/s. Kishanlal Poddar (share) for the year 1949-50, which had been later taken order by it. FOR the assessment year 1967-68, the petitioner also claimed Rs. 18,585 under the head "Repairs to roads and buildings" as revenue expenditure. In his separate assessment orders made on January 30, 1972, and March 8, 1972, for the years 1967-68 and 1968-69, respectively (exhibits E and F), the ITO-C rejected the claim of the petitioner not to subject the credits of Rs. 45,000 and Rs. 67,500 to tax and subjected them to tax under the Act. Under the head "Repairs to roads and buildings", the ITO-C disallowed a sum of Rs. 5,000 as capital expenditure. Against the said orders of the ITO-C, the petitioner filed appeals under section 246 of the Act before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner of Income-tax, Special Range, Bangalore, who by his common order dated July 31, 1974 (exhibit J), dismissed them.

(3.) SRI G. Sarangan, learned counsel for the petitioner, has contended that the order made by the Commissioner in particular on the claims for Rs. 45,000 and Rs. 67,500 without a genuine consideration of the case urged before him and the relevant materials placed before him, was a perverse and illegal one which was even opposed to the principles of natural justice that justified this court's interference under article 226 of the Constitution.