COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX Vs. SOHANLAL DR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AT the instance of the Revenue Department, the Tribunal referred the following question under s. 256(1) of the IT Act, 1961 ('the Act') for our opinion:

(2.) THIS reference relates to the assessment years of 1973-74 and 1974-75. The assessee is a Doctor. He submitted his return of income for the asst. yr. 1973-74 declaring income of Rs. 17,303 inclusive of salary, private practice, property income and income from interest from his minor sons. The ITO found that the assessee had purchased immovable property of Rs. 60,000 in the names of his minor sons Arun Kumar and Anil Kumar during the accounting years relevant to the assessment years of 1973-74 and 1974-75. The assessee explained to the ITO by his lettered dt. 3rd March, 1976 that the house was purchased by assessee's sons. He also declared the source of their income as under :

(3.) MR. Bhandawat next contended that the learned Tribunal committed a grave error in holding that if the Department was not satisfied with the explanation of the assessee then it should have examined the assessee, his wife and his minor sons but they were never examined. He submitted that all of them were examined. Their evidence was already on record.