2003 (8) TMI 7 - HC - Income Tax

Benefits under the amnesty circular -Assessing Officer rejected the claim of the assessee on the ground that no full disclosure was made and, therefore, the assessee was not entitled to the benefits under the amnesty circulars - whether an assessee in whose premises a search was conducted by the departmental officers will not be entitled to the benefit of the amnesty scheme - held that the amnesty scheme was introduced for the benefit of the taxpayers as well as for the benefit of the Revenue and that the scheme cannot be construed in a narrower fashion as to deprive the assessee of its benefit, simply because he was subjected to search, notwithstanding that there was no detection of any concealment - We therefore, remit the case to the Tribunal to find out whether the search did yield any result in favour of the Revenue

Summary

The High Court of Kerala considered whether an assessee subjected to a search by departmental officers is entitled to benefits under an amnesty scheme. The Tribunal held the assessee was entitled to benefits, but the High Court remitted the case back to the Tribunal to determine if any incriminating materials were found during the search before deciding on the entitlement to benefits under the amnesty circular.