The Commissioner Of Income Tax v. Prabha V.kariwala

ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTIONINCOME TAX APPEAL NO.1012 OF 2008 The Commissioner of Income Tax, Vs. Prabha V.Kariwala ..Appellant ..Respondent Mrs.Anuradha Mane for the Appellant.None for the Respondent. P.C. CORAM :- DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN &V.C.DAGA, JJ. DATE : 19TH NOVEMBER, 2008 .Heard the learned Counsel for the Appellant.None appeared for the Respondent, though served. the above Appeal, the Appellant is seeking to raise the following substantial questions of law: :2:reasons at all to come to a conclusion Assessee had concealed the particulars of his and merely on the basis of suspicion, the Assessmentappears to have been reopened. that the income 3.The learned Counsel for the Appellant stronglyrelied on a judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court inthe case of Phool Chand Bajrang Lal and Another Vs.Income Tax Officer and Another 203 ITR 456, whereinthe Hon’ble Supreme Court has observed as under:From the plain phraseology of the abovesections of the Act, it appears that twoconditions precedent which are required to besatisfied before an Income Tax Officer canacquire jurisdiction to proceed under clause(a) of section 147 read with sections 148 and149 of the Act, beyond the period of fouryears but within a period of eight years fromthe end of the relevant year, are : (a) thatthe Income Tax Officer must have reason tobelieve that the income, profits or gainschargeable to tax had either beenunderassessed or had escaped assessment and(b) that the Income Tax Officer must havereason to believe that such escapement orunderassessment was occasioned by reason ofomission or failure on the part of theassessee to disclose fully and truly allmaterial facts necessary for the assessment.Both these conditions must co-exist in orderto confer jurisdiction on the Income TaxOfficer. The Income Tax Officer is obliged,before initiating proceedings under Section148 of the Act, to record the reasons for theformation of his belief to reopen theassessment.4.In the above it is explicitly clear that theIncome Tax Officer has not recorded any opinion thatthe income has been under-assessed. Over and above,the Income Tax Officer has also not recorded anyreason as to believe the argument that the under-assessment was due to omission or fault on thepart of the Assessee to disclose fully or truly allnecessary material facts. Under these circumstancesand also in view of the finding of facts recorded bythe Tribunal, we do not find any substantial question of law involved in the above Appeal. Hence, the same stands dismissed. (DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN,J.) (V.C.DAGA,J.)(DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN,J.) (V.C.DAGA,J.)