P.A. AHAMED Vs. COMMISSIONER OFF INCOME-TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The assessee, a practising advocate, is before this court raising the following questions of law from the orders of the Tribunal, which refused to interfere with the assessment under section 143(3) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (tor brevity "IT Act") :

(2.) On facts, it has to be noticed that there was a search under section 132 of the Income-tax Act conducted on Nov. 16, 2000, in the residential premises of the assessee at Thiruvananthapuram. The details of professional and other transactions as also bank accounts were found at the time of search. A notice under section 158BC dated Jan. 18, 2001 was issued, in response to which the assessee filed a return declaring no undisclosed income. The assessee also filed cash flow statements and copies of computation statements on Nov. 8, 200 In the meanwhile, the statements relating to the bank accounts, with Bharat Overseas Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and Lord Krishna Bank, all from branches at Thiruvananthapuram, were obtained from the respective branches. On the basis of these documents recovered and the post search enquiry, a table was prepared showing the amounts declared by the assessee and that computed as professional receipts by the Assessing Officer (for brevity "AO") based on the documents received on search and post-search enquiry.

(3.) The assessee was issued with a proposal (i) to treat the credits in the bank accounts as professional receipts, (ii) estimate the professional fees at the rate of Rs. 5,000 per case of those clients who could not be served a communication in the address supplied, and (iii) to treat the investments not covered by the cash flow statements as met out of the undisclosed income. The assessee filed objections, in which the credits in the bank accounts were sought to be explained. Certain claims were accepted by the Assessing Officer, though not the entire credits. The amounts credited in the bank accounts were treated as inclusive of professional income. The unexplained investments then were looked into and an assessment made treating the unexplained investment alone, as the undisclosed income. The total undisclosed income so assessed on block assessment was Rs. 5,35,150. The order at annexure-A was passed under section 158BC read with section 143(3) of the Act and was dated Nov. 29, 2002.