BAJRANGLAL BERIA Vs. INCOME TAX OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS judgment will govern all the above civil rules as an identical question of law is involved with regard to the jurisdiction of the ITO to issue the impugned notices under s. 147 of the IT Act, 1961, for four assessment periods against the petitioner -assessee.

(2.) THE only point of difference in the four cases is the quantum of income that is alleged to have escaped assessment. It is therefore sufficient to state the facts of Civil Rule No. 63 of 1967 which were relied upon by the counsel for both parties during the course of the hearing. The assessment year in this case is 1954 -55. In this case there was an earlier assessment under s. 23(4) of the old IT Act which was later cancelled under s. 27 and the assessee submitted his return for the asst. yr. 1954 -55 on 27th January, 1959. Notices under s. 23(2) were served and complied with by the assessee who produced his accounts for the year 2010 R. N. ending 10th of April, 1954, and the assessment order was duly passed under s. 23(3) on an income of Rs. 28,840 inclusive of income from the house property determined at Rs. 7,892. On appeal, the AAC reduced the total income by Rs. 7,898 by his order dated 28th July, 1960. On 18th March, 1963, the assessee received a notice (annexure "B") under s. 148 of the IT Act, 1961, from the ITO (respondent No. 1) in respect of the asst. yr. 1954 -55 along with similar notices for the asst. yrs. 1955 -56, 1956 -57 and 1957 -58, the last three notices being the subject -matters of three other civil rules. The assessee submitted a return under protest showing the same income as was shown in his original return and submitted an application on 24th January, 1967 (annexure "C"), to the ITO to furnish the basis or material under s. 142(3) before the same is utilised against him. The assessee submitted to the officer "that there were no material facts which the assessee did not disclose in the course of the original assessment proceedings". The ITO replied to this petition on 10th February, 1967, by annexure "D" as follows : "Please refer to your letter dated 24 -1 -67. It appears from the records that you showed a sum of Rs. 13,869 in your balance -sheet being the investment in the house properties during the year 2010 R. N. Subsequently on the basis of information in my possession and from local enquiry it was found that the investment in the said house properties comes to Rs.17,000, approximately. In the course of hearing you were requested to furnish full and true particulars of the said properties, investment therein and sources of the investment. But the particulars required are not furnished by you.

(3.) NOTICE under s. 142(1) was served on you asking to produce all sorts of pucca and katcha books of all sources of business, bank pass book, bill register, etc., for the accounting years 2009 and 2010 R. N. In response to which only rokar khata (ledger and nakal of Beria Brothers) for the accounting year 2010 R. N. were produced on the ground that vouchers, and bills of Beria Bros. had already been destroyed and books of accounts of Annapurna Rice and Flour Mills were not traceable. It was also submitted that time is required to trace the other books of accounts and to produce the same before me.