LAKSHMAN PRAKASH Vs. COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE following question has been referred by the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal, Delhi Bench:

(2.) WE are concerned with the assessment for the year 1944-45, the relevant account year being the financial year 1943-44. The assessee is Lakshman Prakash, who calls himself proprietor of Messrs. National Emporium. In the assessment years 1940-41 and the next three years the assessee was assessed as a Hindu undivided family. For the assessment year in question the assessee filed a return in his capacity as an individual and not as a manager of a Hindu undivided family. On 29-3-49 the Income-tax Officer assessed him as representing a Hindu undivided family, but without discussing his status and without noticing that the return had been filed by an individual. The assessee preferred an appeal which was allowed by the Appellate Assistant Commissioner because the Income-tax Officer had not discussed the question of his status. The operative part of his order ends with these words:

(3.) THE assessment order in question, having been passed on 24-1-52, was barred by time, if it could not be made after the expiry of four years from the end of the assessment year, and, within time, if it could be made within eight years of it. Section 34(3), as it was in force upto 31-3-1952 lays down that no order of assessment or re-assessment can be made after the expiry of four years from the end of the year in which the income, profits or gains were first assessable. THEre are two exceptions to this law, but, admittedly, the present case does not come under either of them. THEre arc two provisos, one laying down that, where a notice under Section 34 (1)(b) has been issued within four years from the end of the assessment year, the assessment or re-assessment to be made in pursuance of it may be made before the expiry of one year from the date of the service of the notice, and the other being: