U C REKHI Vs. INCOME TAX OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) RULE nisi was issued directed against the Income-tax Officer, 1st F Ward, New Delhi, prohibiting him from proceeding against the petitioner till the decision of the petition by this Court. This RULE was issued on the 15th March, 1950, and was served on the Income-tax Officer on the 31st March.

(2.) THE applicant contends that he belonged to Rawalpindi and had all along been residing and doing business there till the partition of the Punjab in 1947. He was carrying on the business of running a hotel at Muttee in the district of Rawalpindi and he was also doing contract business there. He stated that although he had all his immovable property in the district of Hazara (now Pakistan) and all his other valuable assets were in Pakistan he had to quit that country owing to communal disturbances after the partition and he had now come to live in India. He also stated that he had been assessed to income-tax at Rawalpindi and for the year of assessment 1943-44 the tax was assessed by the Income-tax Officer, A Ward, Rawalpindi, against which order he had filed an appeal before the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal, Lahore, and that he had submitted his return for the assessment years 1944-45, 1945-46, 1946-47 and 1947-48 to the Income-tax Officer, Rawalpindi, before the 15th of August, 1947, which had not so far been adjudicated upon.

(3.) IN reply, the counsel for the INcome-tax Department contended (1) that there was suppression of material facts in the affidavit on which the rule for prohibition was made and on that ground alone the Court should refuse the writ; (2) that the object of the petitioner was not to get the assessment quashed but it was merely to prevent the INcome-tax Officer from proceeding with his assessment which would have become impossible if the assessment had not been made before the 31st of March, 1950; (3) that it is for the assessing authorities to decide in the first instance whether the applicant is chargeable to INcome-tax; (4) that if the INcome-tax has honestly come to the conclusion upon information his possession that the petitioner has escaped assessment in any year under Section 34 of the INcome-tax Act, then then it is for him to proceed in accord or certiorari; and (5) that the decision of the INcome-tax Officer can only be challenged in the manner provided for in the INcome-tax Act.