9911796707
TMI Blog1980 (7) TMI 62X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... led beyond the time stipulated in the Act. Thereafter, the assessee filed revised returns for the aforementioned assessment years as well as for the assessment year 1975-76. In this writ petition, we are concerned only with the assessment years 1973-74 and 1974-75. For those two years, the concerned ITO, namely, the IInd ITO, Raichur, completed the assessment accepting the revised returns. He also proposed action under s. 271(1)(c) of the I.T. Act of 1961 (hereinafter referred to as " the Act "), for concealment of income. Before the proceedings under s. 271(1)(c) commenced, the petitioner-assessee moved the respondent-Commissioner for relief. Section 273A of the Act specifically empowers the Commissioner to reduce or waive the amount o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... is voluntary disclosure under the special provisions of the 1976 Act whereupon the petitioner revised his returns and even thereafter it took shifting stands by disclosing the income as spread over the three assessment years instead of two years to which the voluntary disclosure related, resulting in considerable loss of revenue to the department. It is necessary to extract the relevant portion of the impugned order to understand the reasoning of the respondent-Commissioner: " The assessee is a firm which claimed to have made a declaration under the Voluntary Disclosure Scheme in December, 1975. However, it was seen that the declaration was received in the Commissioner's office after December 31, 1975, and was, therefore, treated as inval ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... t has taken a stand that the income was earned during the previous years relevant to the assessment years 1973-74, 1974-75 and 1975-76. In this way it has saved a further sum of about Rs. 2,000 and it is now this assessee who has come before me claiming that it should be given benefit of section 273A of the Act by waiving s. 271(1)(c) penalty for these two years." It is patent from the above order that the respondent-Commissioner, had not applied his mind to satisfy himself whether the petitioner had filed the revised returns voluntarily and in good faith and had made a full and true disclosure of the same. He had also not taken into consideration whether or not the assessee, co-operated with the department in concluding the assessment af ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... nder s. 273A. From the portion of the order extracted, it is clear, that the Commissioner did not apply his mind and satisfy himself as to the existence of the ingredients which had relevance to the exercising of jurisdiction under s. 273A, but took factors extraneous to that section into account in order, to exercise his discretion. However, the learned counsel appearing for the revenue strongly contended that it could be inferred from the impugned order that the assessee did not co-operate with the department inasmuch as he took shifting stands. By this, the learned counsel apparently means that the voluntary disclosure for the years 1973-74 and 1974-75 came to be spread over 3 assessment years. I am afraid this argument cannot be accep ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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