9911796707
TMI Blog1982 (3) TMI 55X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... filed six days later. The time-limit for filing an advance tax estimate is laid down by s. 212. No grace days are permitted. Nor does the Act empower the ITO or any other authority to condone the delay even on sufficient cause shown. The obligation to file the estimate is inexorable and absolute. Since the petitioner did not file the estimate in time, the ITO levied a penalty of Rs. 7,675. The penalty was confirmed by the Commissioner in revision. In this writ petition, Mr. K. C. Rajappa for the petitioner urged that the penalty action under s. 273 of the Act is a power coupled with a duty. He contended that in this case there had been a failure on the part of the ITO and the Commissioner to do their duty. He cited the well-known cas ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... offence is not just a default; it must be a default without reasonable cause. The onus is not on the assessee to show that there was a reasonable cause for his default; the onus, on the contrary, is on the officer to show that the assessee's default was without a reasonable cause. There is quite a difference between the two. In the course of the penalty proceedings the petitioner offered an explanation as to why the advance tax estimate could not be filed in time. The ITO remarked that the explanation was " not completely satisfactory ". The Commissioner, in revision, dealt with the explanation in some detail, but he too observed that there were " no merits " in it. These remarks too, in our opinion, exhibit a poor grasp of the part whic ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... for the deficiency in the evidence before him, by calling for an explanation from the assessee and then rejecting it either summarily or by picking holes in it. Section 273 does not empower the officer to levy penalty if the assessee offers no explanation for not filing the estimate in time. Nor can the officer do so by rejecting the explanation, where one is offered, on the ground that he considers it unsatisfactory. We have in the I.T. Act, a few sections wherein the ITO's action in one direction or another is made to depend on the absence of an explanation from the assessee, or on the officer's rejection of the assessee's explanation as unsatisfactory. See ss. 68, 69, 69A, 69B and 69C. Section 273, however, is not similarly constituted. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Hence, according to the Commissioner, the petitioner should have been in a position to file the estimate within time, by 15th December. Mr. Jayaraman, learned standing counsel for the department, referred to this conclusion in the Commissioner's order and submitted that it showed a proper sense of direction in the matter of levy of penalty under s. 273. We do not think so. The pertinent point made by the petitioner in its explanation was that the sudden rise in the paper's circulation put the petitioner's organization under tension and, in the process, made the petitioner miss the time-limit for filing the advance tax estimate. The Commissioner, however, did not advert to this aspect. In our judgment, the Commissioner has thereby ignore ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... pleaded by the petitioner called forth a consideration from a single-minded perspective, namely, to find out whether the non-furnishing of the estimate was without a reasonable cause. What the ITO and the Commissioner, however, did was to proceed as though the petitioner was all the time on the defensive, and if the petitioner's explanation was vulnerable to criticism, there was no escape to the petitioner from the penalty. This approach to the penalty action, as we have earlier shown, is singularly ill-fitted to the plain dictates of s. 273 of the I.T. Act. We, accordingly, quash the penalty of Rs. 7,675 imposed on the petitioner by the ITO and confirmed by the Commissioner. In the circumstances of the case, however, there will be no or ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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