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TMI Blog1956 (9) TMI 73X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s for preferring an appeal to the Tribunal against the order of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner dated 5th November, 1950. Simultaneously the assessee applied to the Income-tax Officer for the issue of a chalan for the payment of the prescribed fee of ₹ 100. It was on 13th February, 1951, that the assessee received the certified copy he had applied for on 29th November, 1950. The endorsement on that certified copy showed that the application for the certified copy had been made on 3rd January, 1951, that the prescribed charges were deposited on 9th January, 1951, and that the certified copy was ready on 6th February, 1951, but that it was actually delivered to the assessee on 13th February, 1951. The assessee, it should be remembered applied for a certified copy on 29th November, 1950. It was a further communication from him dated 3rd January, 1951, that was treated as the regular application for the issue of a certified copy. That explains the date 3rd January, 1951, in the endorsement on the certified copy issued to the assessee. That certified copy bore the seal of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner. On 23rd February, 1951, the assessee preferred his appeal ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... py of the order of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner is certainly not a desideratum for filing an appeal to the Appellate Tribunal. The Tribunal was of the view, that the copy of the order served upon the assessee on 25th November, 1950, was itself a certified copy. The Tribunal pointed out: ...............Even the so called certified copy which the assessee must have obtained in these cases and furnished with the memorandum of appeal nowhere seems different from the copy served on the assessee on 25th November, 1950 . We fail to appreciate the force of this observation. The copy served on the assessee on 25th November, 1950, was a copy of the order passed on appeal by the Appellate Assistant Commissioner. The copy furnished to the assessee on his application as a certified copy was also a copy of the same order. Both had necessarily to be copies of the same order. Apparently the Tribunal was of the view, that even if the provisions of section 67A of the Act applied for computing the period of limitation, the copy served upon the assessee on 25th November, 1950, should be taken to be the certified copy within the meaning of rule 10(1). The In ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... that the assessee had a right to inspect the original order of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner, a certified copy of which the assessee sought. In Rama Rao v. Venkataramayya [1940] 8 ITR 450 a Full Bench of this Court held : Section 54 of the Income-tax Act does not make the issue of a certified copy of an income-tax return to an assessee unlawful. The return is a confidential document and cannot be disclosed to a third party, but there can be no objection to the maker of a return having a copy for his own purposes if he so desires. So far as the assessee is concerned he is not bound to treat the document as confidential . If a return made by the assessee, which forms part of the record of the Income-tax Officer, does not fall within the scope of section 54, when the assessee himself requires a copy of that return, a fortiori a copy of the order passed by the Appellate Assistant Commissioner could not fall within the scope of section 54 of the Income-tax Act so far as the assessee himself is concerned. The learned Judges of the Full Bench also observed: The record of an income-tax case must be regarded as the record of the acts of the Incom ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... re is nothing in the Act or in the rules framed under the Act to indicate that this is the copy the assessee should submit to the Tribunal along with the memorandum of appeal. All that rule 10(1) requires is that one at least of the copies submitted with the memorandum of appeal should be a certified copy of the order appealed against. The assessee could apply for a certified copy for purposes of preferring an appeal, keeping for his own use the copy of the order of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner served upon him in compliance with the requirements of section 33(1) of the Act. If the assessee is entitled to a certified copy, it is the certified copy actually submitted with the memorandum of appeal, to comply with the requirements of rule 10(1), that has to be examined to verify if the requirements of section 67A of the Act are satisfied. It is the time requisite for obtaining that certified copy submitted with the memorandum of appeal that has to be excluded, if section 67A applied. That would be the result of the application of the principle laid down by the Full Bench of this Court in Tirumal Reddy v. Annavema Reddy [1934] ILR 57 Mad. 560. The next contention of the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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