(1.) HEARD Mr. Arvind Vashisht, the learned counsel for the appellant and Mr. S.K. Posti, the learned counsel for the respondent assessee. This is an appeal under Section 260 -A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as Act) filed by the Revenue. For the assessment year 1998 -1999, an assessment order was passed by the Assessing Officer under Section 143(3) / 148 of the Act vide order dated 24th November, 2000. The operative portion of the order of the assessing officer is extracted hereunder : -
(2.) FROM the aforesaid, it is clear that while completing the assessment, the assessing officer had not issued any direction in respect of charging interest under Section 243 -B of the Act.
(3.) THE assessee, being aggrieved by the charging of the interest, filed an application under Section 154 of the Act for rectification of the order on the ground that there was a mistake apparent from the record. The assessee contended that the interest under Section 234B of the Act could not be charged since there was no order to that effect in the assessment order. The application of the assessee was rejected by the assessing officer. The assessee, being aggrieved by the rejection of his application, filed an appeal before the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals), who by an order dated 05.09.2002 allowed the appeal and quashed the order demanding interest under Section 234 -B of the Act. The appellate authority held that there has to be a specific order for charging interest in the assessment order and since the assessing officer did not levy any interest in the assessment order, no interest could be charged in the notice of demand issued under Section 156 of the Act.