COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX Vs. PANAMA CHEMICALS WORKS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Tribunal, Indore Bench, Indore, has referred a question of law, under Section 256 (1), which reads as under: Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was justified in law in holding that the claim of the assessee under Section 80-1 is justified even if he had not filed the audit report in Form No. 10ccb along with return of income?

(2.) BRIEFLY stated, the assessee had claimed deduction under Section 80-I amounting to Rs. 4,03,528. This claim of the assessee was turned down by the AO on the ground that report in Form No. 10ccb was not submitted along with the return. On appeal, the CIT (A) directed the AO to allow deductions under Section 80-I following his predecessor's order. The matter was carried to the Tribunal. It was submitted before the Tribunal that no audit report in Form No. 10ccb was filed along with the return. The assessee vide its reply on 28th Feb. , 1992, stated that audit report dt. 20th Oct. , 1989, signed and verified by Shri T. C. Jain, chartered accountant, had already been submitted along with the return. In view of the fact that audit report in Form No. 10ccb dt. 20th Oct. , 1989 was made available before completion of the assessment and following the decision of the Hon'ble Gujarat High Court in CIT v. Gujarat Oil and Allied Industries 1993 201 ITR 325 (Guj ), the deduction was allowed by the Tribunal. It is in this context that the question has been referred to us for our opinion.

(3.) SUB-SECTION (7) of Section 80-I provides as under: (7) Where the assessee is a person other than a company or a co-operative society, the deduction under Sub-section (1) from profits and gains derived from an industrial undertaking shall not be admissible unless the accounts of the industrial undertaking for the previous year relevant to the assessment year for which the deduction is claimed have been audited by an accountant, as defined in the Explanation below Sub-section (2) of Section 288, and the assessee furnishes, along with his return of income, the report of such audit in the prescribed form duly signed and verified by such accountant.