Gujarat High Court
Commissioner Of Income Tax vs Parshuram Pottery Works Co. Ltd. on 27 September, 1995
Author: M.S. Shah
Bench: M.S. Shah
JUDGMENT
The Court
1. The instance of the Revenue, the Tribunal has referred the following question of law arising out of its order in ITA No. 916/Ahd/81 dt. 24th May, 1982 for the opinion of this Court : "Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was right in law in coming to the conclusion that the expenses incurred by the assessee for maintaining guest houses at Thanagadh, Bombay and Wankaner were allowable under s. 37(4) of the Act ?"
2. From the papers received from the Tribunal and the paper book prepared we find that except the facts disclosing statement of fact sufficient material has not been placed before this Court for deciding the aforesaid issue. This is not sufficient to decide the question referred to us except to dwell on general principles relating to liability of expenses claimed on account of accommodation maintained by the assessee. Whether such accommodation maintained by the assessee can be treated to be a guest house or accommodation in the nature of guest (sic) can be allowed under s. 37(4) was the question raised before the Tribunal. The principles governing liability of expenses claimed by the assessee in respect of accommodation maintained by him are stated in a decision of the Gujarat High Court in the case of CIT vs. Ahmedabad Mfg. & Calico Printing Co. Ltd. (1992) 197 ITR 538 (Guj). Apart from the aforesaid insufficiency of material, we find from the statement of facts that while ITO has disallowed in toto the expenses claimed by the assessee in respect of expenses at Thangad, Bombay and Wankaner, the CIT(A) has allowed the claim of the assessee in part to the extent of Rs. 15,988. Aggrieved by that order of the ITO, the assessee and the Revenue had filed appeals before the Tribunal to the extent of failure. The Tribunal allowed the claim of the assessee in toto from which it appears that while the appeal of the assessee had been allowed, the appeal of the Revenue had been dismissed. A reference has been asked only in respect of decision in one of the appeals, namely, ITA No. 916/Ahd/61. No reference application appears to have been made in respect of any other appeal which was disposed of by the Tribunal against the order of CIT, i.e., to say, this reference application pertains to only part of the claim governed by ITA No. 916/Ahd/81. The decision of the Tribunal in respect of the other appeals remains final. Therefore, a decision on the question referred to us is likely to result in inconsistent result with respect to very same issue relating to part of the claim governed by the reference and part of the claim not challenged. In these circumstances, we decline to answer the question of law referred to us.