The Commissioner Of Income Tax v. Ritu V. Mallya

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAYORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTIONINCOME TAX APPEAL NO. 87 OF 2005 WITH INCOME TAX APPEAL NO. 88 OF 2005 The Commissioner of Income Tax ... Versus Ritu V. Mallya ... Mr. B.M. Chatterjee with Ms. P.P. Bhosale andMr. P.S. Sahadevan for the Appellants. Ms. Beena Pillai i/by D.M.Harish & Co. forRespondents. CORAM: F.I.REBELLO&R.S.MOHITE, JJ.DATED: DECEMBER 19, 2007 Appellant Respondent P.C. . These are the appeals filed by the Revenueagainst the order of the Tribunal for the Assessmentyear 1995-96 and assessment year 1997-98. Thequestion of law in respect of which the appeal isfiled is as under :"Whether on the facts and circumstances ofthe case and in law, the Hon’ble ITAT wasjustified in holding that the addition inquestion for the assessment year underconsideration as made by the AssessingOfficer on the basis of papers, documentsand other materials seized by the departmentunder search note seizure action underSection 132 and other related provisions ofthe Income Tax Act, 1961, were based oninsufficient material, tantamount tosuspicion, surmises, conjectures and notsustainable in law?" . This question of law is in respect of thedeletion of Rs. 20 lacs in the Income of theassessee.. On behalf of the respondents, the learned counselhas pointed out that in respect of the very sameissue, the Revenue has not preferred appeals for theassessment year 1992-93 and 1993-94. On behalf ofthe appellant, the learned counsel states that theCommissioner had directed filing of the appeals.Whatever be the case, the appeals have not beenfiled.. The Revenue had also preferred appeals againstthe order of the ITAT for the assessment years1987-88, 1988-89, 1989-90, 1990-91, 1991-92. Inrespect of these appeals on the very issue, the same have been dismissed for failure to remove office objections by order dated 4.3.2004. . Considering the non filing of the appeals and thedismissal of other appeals, on the very same issue,in our opinion, the appeals presently filed wouldnot be maintainable.. Irrespective of the same, we have gone throughthe orders of the tribunal and have also called therecords in the earlier Appeal and have perused the order passed by the ITAT for the assessment years1986-87 onwards in Income Tax Appeal No.8463/BOM/90 and other appeals. We find that theaspect of the seizure of the document was consideredextensively both by the Commissioner (Appeals) asalso by ITAT. They have rendered concurrentfindings of fact that the document which was seizedduring the search operations, was not acted upon.Once there are two concurrent findings of fact thequestion of law as framed would not arise unless itis pointed out on behalf of the revenue that theevidence on record has not been considered and orthat the evidence on record has wrongly beeninterpreted so as to result in the findings becomingperverse. In the instant case, no such material is placed before us, warranting us to arrive at a conclusion that the findings are perverse. not raise any question of law and are accordingly dismissed. (R.S.MOHITE, J.) (F.I.REBELLO, J.)