SATYANARAYANAMURTHI BH Vs. INCOME TAX APPELLATE TRIBUNAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application under s. 66(2) of the Indian IT Act to direct the Tribunal, Madras, to state a case and refer the questions of law to this Court. The Tribunal dismissed the application filed by the applicant under s. 66(1) of the Indian IT Act on the ground that, under the rules the application must be signed by the applicant and that the agent is not empowered to sign on behalf of the principal. The Tribunal was also inclined to hold that the agent, who signed the application, was not duly authorised by the assessee to take proceedings before the Tribunal. Rule 22A of the Rules framed under the Indian IT Act governs the situation. It reads :

(2.) A Division Bench of the Madras High Court in Subramanian Chettiar vs. CIT (1953) 24 ITR 89 (Mad) : TC 55R.677 considered the question, whether both the applicant and the authorised representative should have signed, or, it would meet the requirements of law if one of them had signed it. Dealing with that question, Satyanarayana Rao, J., who delivered the judgment, observed, thus :

(3.) IT is a well-settled principle that a power of attorney should be strictly construed. The short question is, whether the assessee intended to include the Tribunal within the meaning of the words Courts, civil, criminal, revenue". A Division Bench of the Madras High Court in R. M. Seshadri vs. Addl. ITO (1954) 25 ITR 400 (Mad) : TC 8R.434 held that the Tribunal constituted under the Indian IT Act is not a Court. Notwithstanding that judgment, we would have held, if the context permitted, that the assessee used the word in a more comprehensive sense than that word legally conveys. But the assessee in the power of attorney makes a distinction between Courts and other authorities and, in the operative portion, he authorises separately the attorney to represent him in Courts and to sign the necessary vakalats before the authorities. IT is, therefore, reasonable to assume that the assessee, when he used the word "Courts" used it in its ordinary sense rather than in a loose way. That apart, he also qualified the word "Court" by confining them only to civil, criminal and revenue Courts. In either ordinary parlance or legal sense, the Tribunal cannot be held to be a civil, criminal or revenue Court. IT also appears that this is the first occasion for the applicant to take any proceeding before the IT authorities, or, at any rate, before the Tribunal. IT is more likely, therefore, that, at the time he gave the power of attorney, it was not in his contemplation that the attorney would have to attend the Tribunals. In this context, it is apparent and indeed manifest that the applicant did not intend to authorise the attorney to act for him before the Tribunal. Nor could we hold that the words used by him were of sufficient amplitude to take in Tribunals which are not Courts.