9911796707
TMI Blog1993 (7) TMI 9X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... hwantlal Kantilal Trivedi, Shantaben Jayantilal Trivedi and Naisedh Jayantilal Trivedi. The share of Shantaben, the mother was 45 per cent., Naisedh had 50 per cent. share and the share of Jashwantlal was 5 per cent. and he was admittedly an outsider in the sense that he did not belong to the family of Jayantilal Trivedi. The affairs of the firm were controlled and managed by Shantaben and Naisedh and Jashwantlal was working under their control and guidance. In the year 1971-72, Pallavika, daughter of Shantaben, eloped with Chandrakant Shankerlal Rana and could be traced and brought back to the family with great efforts and pain. She was then married to Bharatkumar Ratilal Pandya in December, 1972. But her relations with Bharatkumar were ne ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ars to have vanished by December 31, 1975. The Tribunal after taking note of the fact that the return for the assessment year 1976-77 was filed on February 12, 1980, though it was due on June 30, 1976, and that there was no reason for condoning the delay in filing the return for that year after January 1, 1977, and that for the period of 37 months, appropriate penalty was imposed upon the assessee, observed as under as regards the delay in filing the return for the assessment year 1977-78: "Before we proceed to appreciate the merits of the assessee's case we would like to point out another material factor which we indicated in court in the course of hearing these appeals and which has been consistently followed by the Benches of the Tribu ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the benefit of condonation of delay or to speak in other words of 'autrefois acquit' in the earlier year would be available in the subsequent year the benefit against the rule of double jeopardy should equally be available to the assessee in the subsequent year/s." Appreciating the facts on the basis of the material before it and following the principle quoted above, the Tribunal held that : "...delay up to February 12, 1980, has been punished in the case for the assessment year 1976-77 and delay from January 1, 1981, to January 31, 1982, has been held by us as having been satisfactorily explained. That leaves the unexplained delay for the period from March 1, 1980, to December 31, 1980, i.e., for 10 months. Penalty for 10 months is th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tax return for each year in time is a separate default by itself and merely because such default can be regarded as a continuing default in the sense that it can be punished till it continues, for that reason, a series of defaults cannot be regarded as one default only and that the assessee should be punished for each default even though the period of default may overlap. In our opinion, there is much substance in this contention raised on behalf of the Revenue. Article 20(2) can be invoked if the following conditions are satisfied: 1. There must be a previous prosecution. 2. The accused must have been punished at such prosecution. 3. The subsequent prosecution must also be one for the prosecution and punishment of the accused. 4. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... of a cause which may not be reasonable or sufficient. Non-completion of accounts for the earlier year may be intentional or because of negligence of the assessee. Obviously, such an excuse will not be regarded as a reasonable cause for delay in filing the income-tax return for that year ; and if such excuse cannot be regarded as sufficient ground for that year, ordinarily, that would not be regarded as good ground for late filing of the return for the subsequent year. just as the question whether non-completion of accounts can be a reasonable cause will have to be decided by reference to the facts of each case, similarly whether the delay in filing the return of income for the subsequent year because of delay in the completion of accounts o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 980, because the accounts for that year were not completed till February 12, 1980. But the Tribunal, while rejecting the application filed by the Revenue under section 256(1), has indicated that the assessee was not able to file the return till February 12, 1980, because the accounts of the earlier year were not finalised. The following observations of the Tribunal in this behalf indicate what prompted it to hold that there was no delay till March 1, 1980 : "The Tribunal found that as far as the assessment year 1977-78 was concerned, the Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals) had condoned the delay up to December 31, 1977, but the assessee had already been penalised for delay up to February 12, 1980, because for the assessment year 1976-77, ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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