BHAGWANT KAUR Vs. COMMISSIONER OF INCOME-TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE assessee, Smt. Bhagwant Kaur, filed returns of income voluntarily for three assessment years, i. e. , 1963-64, 1964-65 and 1965-66, showing income from house property at Rs. 8,842, Rs. 8,842 and Rs. 8,467, respectively. Consequent upon the filing of the aforesaid three returns, orders were passed by the Assessing Officer under Section 143 (1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (for short, "the Act"), for each of the three assessment years on March 23, 1976. Tax was levied on the income declared by the assessee and interest under sections 139 (8) and 217 of the Act was also charged.

(2.) THE assesses challenged the orders passed under Section 143 (1) of the Act for the three assessment years in question, raising two pleas : (i) that the returns filed by her were invalid returns within the meaning of Section 139 (4) (b) of the Act ; and (ii) that the orders passed under Section 143 (1) were barred by limitation under Section 153 of the Act. The Appellate Assistant Commissioner dismissed the appeals in limine on the ground that no appeal lay under Section 246 of the Act against an order passed under Section 143 (1 ). The assessee's plea was that, since she denied her liability to be assessed under the Act, the appeals were maintainable under Section 246 (1) (c) of the Act. The Income-tax Appellate Tribunal (for short, "the Tribunal") in second appeals filed by the assessee upheld the view taken by the first appellate authority. Neither the Appellate Assistant Commissioner nor the Tribunal felt inclined to look into the various grounds raised by the assessee challenging the orders passed under Section 143 (1) of the Act.

(3.) SHRI N. K. Sud, advocate, learned counsel for the assessee, has argued that the assessee denied her liability to be assessed under the Act for two specific and distinct reasons and, therefore, she could not be denied the right to appeal simply because orders had been passed by the assessing authority under Section 143 (1) of the Act, which were indeed not appealable orders. Shri Sud admits that an order under Section 143 (1) did not find its mention in the list of orders given in Sub-section (1) of Section 246 but, nevertheless, the order can be challenged on the particular plea that the assessee denied her liability to be assessed under the Act. The thrust of the argument put forward by Shri Sud is that the mere fact that the orders had been passed by the Assessing Officer under Section 143 (1), could not disqualify the assessee from challenging the order if she could do so under any of the clauses of Sub-section (1) of Section 246 of the Act. It is stated that Clause (c) of Sub-section (1) of Section 246, which reads as under, enables the assessee to file an appeal in case of denial of liability :