COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX Vs. PRINCESS SARLA KUMARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Income-tax Appellate Tribunal, Jabalpur, has referred the following three questions to this court for its opinion under section 256(1)of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as " the Act");

(2.) WHETHER, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was justified in law in freshly enquiring into the matter of assessment having been completed without the service of notices under Section 143(2) when such point did not arise out of the orders of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner ?

(3.) IT thus appears that the case of the assessees themselves was that the assessment order which was purported to have been passed on February 27, 1976, was back-dated meaning thereby that the order of assessment was not passed on February 27, 1976, but was passed on a later date. The Tribunal, in place of accepting this plea which was raised on behalf of the assessees, held that the order of assessment had been passed before issue of notice under Section 143 of the Act and hearing the assessees which was indeed never their case. What transpires from these facts is that the order of assessment was passed either on March 27, 1976, and due to some inadvertence, the date was mentioned as February, 1976, or on some other date in March, 1976, after notice under Section 143(2) of the Act had been served on the assessees and they had been heard. This conclusion of ours finds support from the assessees' own case that the order was back-dated. On the facts and circumstances of this case, therefore, it is apparent that the order of assessment was passed after notice under Section 143{2) of the Act had been served on the assessees and their representative as well as their counsel had appeared before the Income-tax Officer "from time to time and explained the return". The order of assessment was, consequently, neither non est nor void. The second appeal filed by the assessees in the facts and circumstances of the case was not maintainable inasmuch as the order of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner was an order whereby the appeal preferred by them had been allowed in its entirety and they cannot be said to be "aggrieved" by the said order within the meaning of Section 253 of the Act.