COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX Vs. BERI CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON 30th March, 1968, Sarvashri M.M. Bed, R.P. Beri and their father, Shri Gurdial Singh Beri, entered into a partnership to carry on the business of manufacture and sale of chemicals in the name and style of M/s. Beri Chemical Industries, Jullundur. This firm was granted registration till the assessment year 1970-71. ON 1st March, 1971, Shri Gurdial Singh Beri died and thereupon a new partnership deed was executed on 2nd March, 1971, and Shrimati Vidyawati, widow of Shri Gurdial Singh, joined the firm as a partner. ON 8th September, 1971, the assessee, i.e., the newly constituted firm, filed an application for registration for the assessment year 1971-72. Under Section 184(4) of the I.T, Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act"), this application should have been filed before the end of the previous year, i.e., 31st March, 1971. The assessee, therefore, prayed for condonation of delay in filing the application for registration on the ground that Shri Gurdial Singh was the managing partner of the firm and that, due to his death, the other partners were in a state of confusion and so they could not apply for registration before 31st March, 1971. This plea of the assessee was not accepted by the ITO and he refused to condone the delay in filing the application for registration. He, therefore, rejected the application for registration and completed the assessment of the assessee in the status of an unregistered firm. The assessee filed two appeals before the AAC. ONe was against the order of the ITO completing the assessment in the status of an unregistered firm and the other was against the order of the ITO refusing to condone the delay under the proviso to Section 184(4) of the Act. (In the present reference, we are only concerned with the order refusing to condone the delay). In the appeal against this order passed by the ITO refusing to condone the delay in filing the application for registration, the 'AAC held that no appeal was maintainable against such an order. The assessee then went up in second appeal before the Tribunal against the order of the AAC. However, the Tribunal accepted the appeal of the assessee and directed the ITO to grant registration to the assessee-firm for the assessment year under consideration, with the following observations :

(2.) IT was further held by the Tribunal that the impugned order passed by the ITO was really an order under Section 185(1)(b) and not under Section 184(4) of the Act, and as such an appeal was maintainable before the AAC.