COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX Vs. HABIBULLAH M

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Income-tax Appellate Tribunal, Allahabad Bench, Allahabad (hereafter "the Tribunal"), has referred the following questions for the opinion of thiscourt under Section 256(1) of the I.T. Act, 1961 (hereafter "the Act") :

(2.) THE respondent-assessee, M. Habibullah, is an individual and a non-resident. He had not filed any return of income for the assessment years 1967-68 to 1969-70, On receipt of information that there were a large number of deposits in the bank accounts of the assessee, the ITO took action under Section 147(a) of the Act for these three years. Notices were issued to the assessee and he filed returns showing his income at nil. During the course of assessment, the ITO found that in the previous year relevant to the assessment year 1967-68, there were two deposits of Rs. 11,000 and Rs. 15,000 in the account of the assessee with the Punjab National Bank, Varanasi. It was claimed by the assessee that those amounts had come to him from his son, Shaukat AH, who in turn ascribed the source to one Munshi Raghunath Prasad. This gentleman was an employee of the assessee himself. THE ITO required the assessee to produce him but the assessee could not do so because he had died in 1970. THE ITO hence treated these deposits as the assessee's own income from an undisclosed source.

(3.) AFTER giving its anxious consideration, the Tribunal felt itself unable to hold that the charge had been brought home to the assessee. In its opinion since Raghunath Prasad had died, the assessee could not produce him. Similarly, the whereabouts of Sri Patel were not known. The assessee, however, filed confirmatory letter and affidavit from him and according to it : "It is difficult to hold beyond reasonable doubt in these quasi-criminal proceedings that the money did not in any case belong to him."