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1 - 10 of 15 (0.23 seconds)The Rajasthan Finance Act, 1961
Section 69A in The Income Tax Act, 1961 [Entire Act]
Dhirajlal Girdharilal vs C.I.T. Bombay on 25 October, 1954
In Lalchand Bhagat Ambica Ram's case [1959] 37 ITR 288, the Supreme Court referred to its earlier decisions in Dhirajlal Girdharilal v. CIT [1954] 26 ITR 736, Dhakeswari Cotton Mills Ltd. v. CIT [1954] 26 ITR 775, Mehta Parikh and Co. v. CIT [1956] 30 ITR 181, Sree Meenakshi Mills Ltd. v. CIT [1957] 31 ITR 28 and Omar Salay Mohamed Sait v. CIT [1959] 37 ITR 151, and set out the proper approach to be adopted by the High Courts in such cases; this has been summarized in the headnote (pp. 290-91) in the following words :
Dhakeswar1 Cotton Mills Ltd vs Commissioner Of Income Tax,West Bengal on 29 October, 1954
In Lalchand Bhagat Ambica Ram's case [1959] 37 ITR 288, the Supreme Court referred to its earlier decisions in Dhirajlal Girdharilal v. CIT [1954] 26 ITR 736, Dhakeswari Cotton Mills Ltd. v. CIT [1954] 26 ITR 775, Mehta Parikh and Co. v. CIT [1956] 30 ITR 181, Sree Meenakshi Mills Ltd. v. CIT [1957] 31 ITR 28 and Omar Salay Mohamed Sait v. CIT [1959] 37 ITR 151, and set out the proper approach to be adopted by the High Courts in such cases; this has been summarized in the headnote (pp. 290-91) in the following words :
Messrs Mehta Parikh & Co vs The Commissioner Of Income-Tax,Bombay on 10 May, 1956
In Lalchand Bhagat Ambica Ram's case [1959] 37 ITR 288, the Supreme Court referred to its earlier decisions in Dhirajlal Girdharilal v. CIT [1954] 26 ITR 736, Dhakeswari Cotton Mills Ltd. v. CIT [1954] 26 ITR 775, Mehta Parikh and Co. v. CIT [1956] 30 ITR 181, Sree Meenakshi Mills Ltd. v. CIT [1957] 31 ITR 28 and Omar Salay Mohamed Sait v. CIT [1959] 37 ITR 151, and set out the proper approach to be adopted by the High Courts in such cases; this has been summarized in the headnote (pp. 290-91) in the following words :
Shree Meenakshi Mills Ltd., Madurai vs Commissioner Of Income-Tax, Madras on 19 September, 1966
In Lalchand Bhagat Ambica Ram's case [1959] 37 ITR 288, the Supreme Court referred to its earlier decisions in Dhirajlal Girdharilal v. CIT [1954] 26 ITR 736, Dhakeswari Cotton Mills Ltd. v. CIT [1954] 26 ITR 775, Mehta Parikh and Co. v. CIT [1956] 30 ITR 181, Sree Meenakshi Mills Ltd. v. CIT [1957] 31 ITR 28 and Omar Salay Mohamed Sait v. CIT [1959] 37 ITR 151, and set out the proper approach to be adopted by the High Courts in such cases; this has been summarized in the headnote (pp. 290-91) in the following words :
Omar Salay Mohamed Sait vs Commissioner Of Income-Tax, Madras on 5 March, 1959
In Lalchand Bhagat Ambica Ram's case [1959] 37 ITR 288, the Supreme Court referred to its earlier decisions in Dhirajlal Girdharilal v. CIT [1954] 26 ITR 736, Dhakeswari Cotton Mills Ltd. v. CIT [1954] 26 ITR 775, Mehta Parikh and Co. v. CIT [1956] 30 ITR 181, Sree Meenakshi Mills Ltd. v. CIT [1957] 31 ITR 28 and Omar Salay Mohamed Sait v. CIT [1959] 37 ITR 151, and set out the proper approach to be adopted by the High Courts in such cases; this has been summarized in the headnote (pp. 290-91) in the following words :
Smt. Srilekha Banerjee And Others vs Commissioner Of Income-Tax, Bihar And ... on 27 March, 1963
21. Kanpur Steel Co. Ltd.'s case [1957] 32 ITR 56 (All) and Lalchand Bhagat Ambica Ram's case were explained by the Supreme Court in Sreelekha Banerjee v. CIT . A very pertinent observation is to be found at page 117 of the report, which reads : "Each case must depend upon its own peculiar facts". Whether the decision of the Tribunal on a finding of fact can be sustained or not would depend upon what was the question in issue before the Tribunal, what was the material which was required to be considered, on whom was the burden of proof and how has the Tribunal assessed all the material in the light of the proper approach required to be made on the facts of that case. A case involving high denomination notes is not comparable with a case involving ornaments or jewellery. The ornaments and jewellery found or alleged to be in the possession of a jeweller or a bullion merchant or a goldsmith may stand on a different footing from such ornaments and jewellery found in the possession of persons trading in cloth or who are owners of textile mills. The explanation of an assessee as regards the origin or source of gold and ornaments may differ from case to case. Therefore, it cannot be said that any observation in any case pertaining to some argument or some aspect of the evidence in that case must be regarded as one which is universally applicable to all cases and binding in all matters irrespective of the facts under consideration. Further, as stated earlier, materials being considered by a fact-finding body, whose decision is final, normally cannot be considered in isolation, and the total cumulative effect there of will be required to be considered. The proper approach to the decision of the Tribunal in the instant case is to ask : (1) whether there is any relevant material or aspect which it has ignored and failed to consider ? (2) whether there is any material on which it has based its decision which appears to be irrelevant ? (3) whether it has refused to accept the version or explanation of the assessees by reason of any prejudice against them ? (4) whether any of the conclusions reached have been based on conjectures or surmises ? (8) whether the probabilities have been properly considered and the onus properly put on the assessees or revenue, as the case may be ? All these questions will be required to be answered before the Tribunal's decision or any finding can be said to be perverse. It was submitted that the decision in the assessees' appeals must be regarded as perverse and totally unreasonable inasmuch as it was held that the assessees' explanation that they had inherited the ornaments was totally rejected, which would tantamount to holding that Hargovandas and Harkorbai had left no ornaments. In our opinion, this is over simplifying the question. The Tribunal was considering Samvat years 2012 and 2013, i.e., assessment year 1956-57. The parents of the two assessees had died in 1941 and 1942, respectively. By refusing to accept the assessees' case that the ornaments in their possession were got melted in these two Samvat years and that the ornaments were inherited ornaments, the Tribunal, in our opinion, has not held that Hargovandas and Harkorbai had left no ornaments or other jewellery. It was submitted that on various aspects the assessees had furnished material, from which their version was quite probable, and a reasonable tribunal should have accepted their version and held in their favour. On the other hand, a number of factors have been brought on record by the Tribunal which would suggest that what the two assessees were contending for, rather strenuously, was unusual and improbable. It appears to us that the fact that there was no written record of any nature whatsoever regarding the inherited ornaments is an item of considerable importance, which the Tribunal has stressed against the assessees and, in our opinion, rightly so. On two previous occasions the question of sales of gold had arisen in the assessments, once for both the assessees and once for one of the two brothers. No inventory was made nor any information given to the ITOs. Even when the ornaments are supposed to have been handed over to the refineries for melting, it is the assessees' contention that no record of the ornaments, either individually or collectively, was kept. This behaviour does not appear to be a normal or natural behaviour. But we are not concerned with adjudging the probabilities of the case. As there is no direct evidence of what ornaments, if any, were left by Hargovandas and Harkorbai and inherited by the two assessees and what ornaments remained in their possession up to 1956-57, the matter will have to be judged on various pieces of evidence, from which it would have to be held whether the assessees' version is to be accepted or not. If all these pieces of evidence have been properly considered, none of any relevance ignored and none irrelevant emphasised, then, in our opinion, it would not be proper to reappraise the evidence for ourselves and hold that the Tribunal was in error in not accepting the assessees; claim in toto or at least partially. These observations are not to be taken to suggest that in our opinion there is sufficient material on record to hold that we, as a tribunal of fact, would have taken a view different from the one taken by the Tribunal. It would appear to us that the approach of the Tribunal is the one which is proper and the view taken by it is a possible one which could be taken on the material on record; and if that is so, then it is not possible for us to hold that the decision of the Tribunal is perverse or so erroneous that it is required to be quashed in the limited reference jurisdiction either under s. 66 of the Indian I.T. Act, 1922, or under s. 256 of the I.T. Act, 1961.
J.S. Parkar vs V.B. Palekar And Ors. on 27 April, 1973
In J. S. Parkar's case [1974] 94 ITR 616 (Bom), to which reference was made at the bar, the court was not directly concerned with an assessment made prior to April 1, 1964; the assessment before it was after that date and accordingly it was observed that since at that time s. 69A was on the statute book, the rule of evidence incorporated in the section was required to be applied. These observations cannot be taken to mean that the court decided that if the assessment had been made prior to April 1, 1964, the rule of evidence contained in s. 69A was not applicable. Even if the court had expressly so stated, its decision would be obiter since the question did not arise for consideration before it. What we have stated must not be taken to suggest that in our opinion s. 69A would have to be applied to the assessment of the two assessees before us but that s. 69A contains a commonsense principle - an approach, which, if applied to any particular assessment, cannot be regarded as contravening any principle of law or any rule of evidence. To give an example, if an amount is brought into the assessee's s business by the assessee and on being questioned the assessee gives some farfetched explanation, which is rejected, normally and even without the rule of evidence contained in s. 69A, there would be nothing improper in the amount being considered as the assessee's income from undisclosed sources for that year. There may be, however, some intrinsic factory or some material on record already which may have some bearing on the question; such material or circumstance will be required to be considered. After the assessee's explanation is rejected, the assessee can still submit that the amount should not be wholly added as income from undisclosed sources for a particular year or that it should be spread over or that it should be liable to be considered as income from undisclosed sources for another year. It will be open for the assessee to so contend and to point out to the material or circumstance which may support such an argument. The assessee, however, cannot be headed to say that it is for the revenue to bring in some material or evidence on record to suggest affirmatively that the cash amount was the equivalent of some goods or gold (which is the commodity in question) and must be attributable to a particular year in question; and if there is no such evidence brought on the record of the Tribunal, no addition of any amount for any year is permissible. This, in our opinion, would not be the correct approach. There is no material on record to show that these amounts relate to the income of the assessees for any earlier year or any year other than the year under consideration. In our opinion, if there is no material on record, then, the two amounts which represent the sale proceeds of the gold must be regarded as the assessee's income from undisclosed sources in the two years in question inasmuch as they were introduced in the books at the relevant time and as the assessees' explanation for the source and origin of the gold which was got melted has been found unacceptable. The assessees cannot be permitted to give an unacceptable explanation and rest content requiring the department to show that they had purchased or secured the gold or gold ornaments from some source in these years or got such gold melted and then disposed of the bars to bring cash amounts into their books.