PETLAD BULAKHIDAS MILLS COMPANY LIMITED Vs. RAJ SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition raises a very short question as to the interpretation of the period of limitation provided under section 33A for the making of an application by the assessee for revision.

(2.) THE appellate Assistant Commissioner made the order on the 9th January 1956. The order was served upon the assessee on the 27th January 1956, and the assessee made the application for revision under section 33A on the 25th January 1957. The period of limitation is one year form the date of the order or within such further period as the Commissioner may think fit to allow on being satisfied that the assessee was prevented by sufficient cause from making the application within that period, and the contention of the Department is that limitation begins to run from the date of the order viz., the 9th January 1956, and inasmuch as the application was made on the 25th January 1957 the application is out of time. On the other hand, the contention of the assessee is that limitation begins to run from the date when the assessee came to know of the order, which is the 27th January 1956, and therefore his application is within time.

(3.) TURNING to the authorities, the Madras High Court has taken the same view of this section in a recent judgment in Muthiah Chettiar v. Commr. of Income -tax, (1951) 19 ITR 402 : (AIR 1951 Madras 204), and the learned Chief Justice in his judgment points out at p. 404 that the interpretation of the Madras High Court was based upon a salutary and just principle, viz., that if a person is given a right to resort to a remedy to get rid of an adverse order within a prescribed time limitation should not be computed from a date earlier than that on which the party aggrieved actually knew of the order or had an opportunity of knowing the order and therefore must be presumed to have had knowledge of the order.