1987 (2) TMI 15

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..... " the Act "), the Income-tax; Appellate Tribunal, Indore Bench, has referred the following question of law to this court for its opinion : " Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was right in holding that the assessments for the assessment years 1971-72, 1972-73 and 1973-74 were rightly reopened by the Wealth-tax Officer under section 17(1)(b) of the Wealth-tax .....

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..... lue of this Kothi is to be included in the net wealth of the assessee. Therefore, to bring to tax the escaped value of the above property, action under section 17(1)(b) is necessary. " Thereafter, the Wealth-tax Officer proceeded to assess the assessee afresh for the assessment years in question. Aggrieved by the orders passed by the Wealth-tax Officer, the assessee preferred appeals before the .....

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..... the assessee. The only reason recorded by the Wealth-tax Officer for reopening the assessment was that the Central Board of Direct Taxes was of the view that the value of Shriniwas Kothi was not exempt from wealth-tax. It is now well settled as a result of the decision of the Supreme Court in Indian Eastern Newspaper Society v. CIT[1979] 119 ITR 996, that when section 147(b) of the Income-tax Ac .....

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..... r residential purposes and was not put to any other use. It is quite obvious that while taking this decision, he considered the fact of the assessee actually living in Lal Bagh Palace as irrelevant. That palace did not belong to him. He was allowed to reside there merely as a result of an administrative arrangement arrived at by the Government with the real owner of the palace. Later on, the ITO c .....

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..... er and, moreover, the reason so supplied by the Tribunal could not have been in existence on the date when the assessments were reopened. The Tribunal, therefore, was not justified in holding that the Wealth-tax Officer was right in reopening the assessments in question. For all these reasons, our answer to the question referred to this court is in the negative and in favour of the assessee. In .....

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