LAKSHMINARASIMHASWAMI DEVASTHANAM Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE assessee has filed these petitions under section 54(1) of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1955, against the order made by the Commissioner of Agricultural Income-tax rejecting the petitioner's revision petitions to revise the orders of assessment made against the petitioner for the years 1982-83 and 1983-84, after those orders has been rectified by the Assessing Officer, in exercise of his powers under section 35 of the Act. THE initial orders of assessment were made on August 13, 1984, assessing the petitioner to tax in the sum of Rs. 2,152.60 and Rs. 3,689.50 for the years 1982-83 and 1983-84, respectively.

(2.) ALMOST a year later, but well within the period of limitation prescribed under section 35 of the Act, which empowers the Assessing Officer to reopen the assessment in order, inter alia, to include any income escaping the assessment, the Assessing Officer issued a notice to the petitioner on February 15, 1985, which was received by the assessee on February 21, 1985. The assessee undertook to produce certain accounts required for the Assessing Officer, by March 26, 1985, but he did not do so. A reminder was sent to the assessee on July 24, 1985, which was duly received, but the assessee did not do anything thereafter. The revised orders of assessment came to be passed on September 13, 1985.

(3.) THE Privy Council in the case of CIT v. Tribune Trust [1948] 16 ITR 214, while considering section 33 of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, which provision enabled the Commissioner to revise the orders of his subordinates, held that the order passed by the Commissioner refusing to set aside the orders of assessment made against the assessee during the period when the assessee's appeal against the assessment made for the earlier year was pending before the Privy Council and in which appeal, the Privy Council after the assessment had been made for subsequent years held that the assessee's income was not taxable on the ground that it was applied for a charitable purpose, could not be said to have caused pre-judice to the assessee, as by the reason of refusal of the Commissioner, the assessee's position remained as it was at the time, the assessments impugned before the Commissioner were made. THE assessee had not preferred appeal against those assessments and had not availed of the remedy which was available to it under the Act for having an illegal assessment set aside or corrected in appeal. THE Privy Council also considered section 33 along with section 66(2) of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922, and held that a reference under the latter section could not be made in respect of an order made by the Commissioner which merely rejected the petition of the assessee to interfere with the order of assessment. THE court concluded by stating that (page 227) ".... a reference does not lie from an order under section 33 unless that order is prejudicial to the assessee in the sense that he is in a worse position than before the order was made."