High Court Of Punjab & Haryana
CIT vs. Soccer International
Sections 144B, 153(3), Expln. 1(iv)
Asst. Year 1979-80
Jawahar Lal Gupta & N.K. Sud, JJ.
IT Ref. No. 75 of 1986
7th January, 2002
Counsel Appeared
R.P. Sawhney with Kishan Singh, for the Applicant : None, for the Respondent
JUDGMENT
N.K. SUD, J. :
At the instance of the Revenue, the following question of law has been referred to this Court by the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal (for short ‘the Tribunal’) under s. 256(1) of the IT Act, 1961 (for short ‘the Act’) : “Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal is right in law in holding that the reference made under s. 144B of the IT Act was bad in law and the assessment made on 31st July, 1982, is barred by limitation.”
2. The assessee-firm derived income from the export of sports goods for the asst. yr. 1979-80. A return showing an income of Rs. 3,78,230 was filed on 29th Oct., 1979. The ITO, Special Circle-II, Jalandhar, computed the total income at Rs. 7,47,350 vide assessment order dt. 31st July, 1982. This was done after making a reference under s. 144B of the Act to the IAC of Income-tax (Asst.) Range, Jalandhar, and obtaining instructions from him. In this process, the ITO availed of the extended period of limitation as provided in cl. (iv) of Expln. 1 of s. 153(3) of the Act.
The assessee challenged the assessment on the ground that the ITO had wrongly followed the procedure laid down under s. 144B of the Act, and, therefore, the extended period of limitation was not available for completing the assessment. It was claimed that the ITO had concurrent jurisdiction along with the IAC under s. 125A of the Act and, therefore, in the light of sub-s. (7) of s. 144B, the procedure laid down under that section was not required to be followed.
The Tribunal agreed with the assessee and annulled the assessment. This issue had come up for consideration before a Division Bench of this Court in CIT vs. Gheru Lal Bal Chand (1998) 144 CTR (P&H) 228 : (1998) 233 ITR 82 (P&H) : TC S11.1282 wherein it has been held that sub-s. (7) of s. 144B was not attracted and the procedure laid down in that section had been rightly followed as the ITO, having concurrent jurisdiction with the IAC under s. 125A of the Act, proposed to make variation in the income of the assessee by an amount exceeding Rs. one lac.
3. Respectfully following the aforesaid view, the question referred to this Court is answered in the negative i.e., in favour of the Department and against the assessee. No costs.
[Citation : 254 ITR 287]
