COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX Vs. GEORGE JACOB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN all these 29 references the question is as to whether the INcome-tax Officer is justified in exercise of the powers under Section 154 of the INcome-tax Act, 1961, for the purpose of modifying the order passed earlier whereby the exclusion of income declared by the assessees concerned under Section 3(1) of the Voluntary Disclosure Act could be annulled, modified or otherwise.

(2.) THE question is as follows, which is the same in all these references :

(3.) ON October 8, 1975, the Voluntary Disclosure of Income and Wealth Act, 1976, came into force. Section 3 of the said Act required any person, before January 1, 1976, to make a declaration in accordance with the provisions of Section 4 thereof in respect of any income chargeable to tax under the Income-tax Act, 1961, for any assessment year, provided in regard to the said income, such person had failed to furnish a return under Section 139 of the Income-tax Act or which he failed to disclose in any return of income furnished by him under the Income-tax Act, before the commencement of this Act or in regard to such income assessment is escaped by reason of the omission or failure on the part of such person to make a return under the Income-tax Act or to disclose the same fully and truly with reference to all material facts necessary for the assessment or otherwise. When such person satisfies these situations, the provision enacts that in that situation notwithstanding anything contained in the Income-tax Act, 1961, or in any Finance Act, income-tax shall be chargeable in respect of the income so declared which is described under the Act as "the voluntarily disclosed income" at the rate or rates specified in the Schedule to the Act. These assessee-partners accordingly filed the returns with regard to the income which could not be understood as income as qualified by the above three situations.