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40. Article IV i. Article IV alleged that the Respondent no. 1 passed order under Section 143(3) of the IT Act in the case of M/s Arochem Silvassa Ltd. for A.Y. 1993-94 without levying mandatory interest under Section 234A of the IT Act, while determining the taxes payable on completion of scrutiny assessment.

ii. The Enquiry Officer on examining the documents on record in great detail concluded that the said charge had not been proved. The Enquiry officer had observed that in the Assessment Order the Respondent No.1 had ordered interest under section 234 B & 234 C etc. Therefore, it could not be held that any undue benefit of interest of Section 234 A had been conferred on the assessee. The dispute in the matter remained regarding the issue, whether the revised return was a valid return and therefore, the question of the applicability of the tax under Section 234 A had arisen. On perusing the assessment order, the Enquiry Officer was of the view that it was not evident that the Respondent No.1 had treated the revised return as statutorily valid as alleged in the Article and that the prosecution also could not produce anything to show that the Respondent No.1 had accepted the revised return or considered the income disclosed in the revised return as acceptable. The Enquiry Officer further went a step forward and stated that even if it is to be assumed that the Respondent No.1 had not discussed about the rejection of revised return in his assessment order, yet it is not a case of any malafide intensions or undue benefit to the assessee. iii. The Disciplinary Authority disagreed with the finding of the Enquiry Officer and stated that the Enquiry Officer had erred in concluding that there is no evidence to show that the Respondent No.1 had considered the income of the revised return. It was observed that in the revised return the assessee has excluded a sum of `1, 15,379/- treating the same as income not attributed to the industrial activity. The Respondent No.1 had taken the said amount into consideration while computing the deductions under section 80 H & 80 I, as is evident from the assessment order. iv. It is pertinent to notice that the Disciplinary Authority could not assume that the amount excluded in the revised return by the assessee had been taken into consideration. If that be so then how undue benefit had been conferred on the assessee or how the Respondent No.1 had relied on any extraneous material while taking the alleged decision. The fact that the irregularity, if any, amounted to "misconduct" is not apparent from the record and the allegations as has been noted and relied on by the Disciplinary Authority has not been made out even prima facie. Therefore, the departmental action taken against the Respondent no. 1 could not be justified on the said charge.