COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX Vs. M A UNNERIKUTTY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE year of assessment is 1969-70, corresponding to accounting year ending March 31, 1969.

(2.) THE assessee is an individual dealing in copra, oil, etc. While computing the assessable income of the assessee, the ITO estimated the cost of construction of the residential building, he had constructed during the year, at Rs. 69,950. However, he held that the total investment in that regard came only to a sum of Rs. 61,950. This investment was held to have been met out of the assessee's income from sources not disclosed and hence assessed under other sources. In doing so, the assessing authority had rejected the explanation of the assessee that he had utilised for the construction work a sum of Rs. 30,000 as having been given to him by his father. Similarly, the cash credits of Rs. 16,000 in the name of certain creditors was also held to be only a camouflage and as such the said amount was also found to be the assessee's income from undisclosed sources. Accordingly, the assessing authority treated the aforesaid amounts as income from other sources and added them back while determining the total assessable income at Rs. 1,53,021.

(3.) THE Tribunal concurred with the findings of the AAC. The Tribunal did not stop there. The Tribunal, however, found that the aforesaid unexplained amounts, namely, Rs. 19,950 and Rs. 16,000, would be fully covered by the intangible additions made to the assessable income of the assessee in the immediately preceding year. In doing so, it rejected the contention of the Department, based on a decision of the Supreme Court in CIT vs. Althi Bangarayya (1975) 100 ITR 10 (SC), that the assessee should not be permitted to advance such a plea because the said plea appeared to be self-contradictory.