Commissioner Of Income-Tax vs A.K. Das on 27 August, 1969
For that purpose reliance was placed on the authority in Kanpur Industrial Works v. Commissioner of Income-tax already quoted. But, then, there, in that case, the increase of the assessment was the total ambit of the appeal. In fact, there it was held that the point of no assessability at all should not be allowed o be raised as against the whole assessment but confined only to the part of the increase in assessment which was the subject-matter of the appeal before the Tribunal. It was in that case that the word "incongruity" has been used and the incongruity was avoided by suggesting the course, that legal assessability was not generally to be the issue and not allowed to be raised but in so far as it affected the increase only in the assessment, it was allowed. To follow such a course in this case would be not only incongruous but completely illogical. If the penalty proceedings were invalid in law altogether, then there can be no question of the penalty being lower than the minimum statutory limit, for ex hypothesis the penalty did not come under the statute at all.