Dinshaw Darabshaw Shroff vs Commissioner Of Income-Tax, Central. on 16 September, 1942
We are referred to a decision of a single judge of the madras High court in K.P.M.T.T. Thyagaraja Chettiar v. The Chettiar, in which it was held that the Court could not issue a writ of certiorari to prevent the execution of an alleged illegal assessment order. That case seems to me to be an authority directly in point. There is another case in the same volume in Ramjidas Mahaliram, In re, in which a single Judge of the Calcutta High Court intimated the view that a write of certiorari could issue in order to challenge the legality of an income-tax assessment. But in the course of that proceeding, the relief claimed was limited to a writ of prohibition; so that the learned Judges observations as to a writ of certiorari, were obiter dicta only; and as eventually no writ, even of prohibition, was issued, the case is not a direct authority. In my opinion, the decision of the Madras High Court was right, and it is not open to this Court, in view of Section 226 of the Government of India Act, to call for the record of the Income-tax Department in order to satisfy ourselves that this assessment was legal.