Oriental Insurance Company vs Commissioner Of Income Tax, Delhi on 15 September, 2015
72. Reasons to believe cannot be a rubber stamping of the opinion already
formed by someone else. The officer who is supposed to write down his
reasons to believe has to independently apply his mind. Further, and more
importantly, it cannot be a mechanical reproduction of the words in the
statute. When an authority judicially reviewing such a decision peruses such
reasons to believe, it must be apparent to the reviewing authority that the
officer penning the reasons has applied his mind to the materials available
on record and has, on that basis, arrived at his reasons to believe. The
process of thinking of the officer must be discernible. The reasons have to
be made explicit. It is only the reasons that can enable the reviewing
authority to discern how the officer formed his reasons to believe. As
explained in Oriental Insurance Company v. Commissioner of Income Tax
[2015] 378 ITR 421 (Delhi), ―the prima facie formation of belief should be
rational, coherent and not ex facie incorrect and contrary to what is on
record‖.