Suo Motu Revisional Power: connected appellate orders may be set aside to give effective relief in assessment proceedings.

A revisional authority may use its suo motu power to set aside an appellate order confirming an ex parte assessment where the remedies are distinct but connected and effective relief would otherwise be incomplete. The appellate order remains open to revisional scrutiny even if no separate revision was filed against it, and reopening the assessment on merits can justify cancelling the connected appellate order as well. A challenge that the assessment record was not separately called for cannot succeed when that objection was not raised before the authority and the record does not show any jurisdictional defect. The reference was rejected and the revisional order sustained.

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Issues: (i) Whether the revising authority could, in exercise of suo motu revisional power, set aside the appellate order confirming the assessment although the assessee had not filed a revision against that appellate order, and (ii) whether the revising authority could validly exercise such power without the assessment record being separately called for before it.

Issue (i): Whether the revising authority could, in exercise of suo motu revisional power, set aside the appellate order confirming the assessment although the assessee had not filed a revision against that appellate order.

Analysis: The remedies under the provision for setting aside an ex parte assessment and the remedy of appeal against the assessment were distinct. Even if the assessment order had attained finality because no separate revision had been filed against the appellate order, that order remained amenable to revisional scrutiny under the statutory suo motu power. Once the revising authority allowed the challenge to the ex parte assessment proceedings and reopened the assessment, it was within jurisdiction to set aside the appellate order also, so that the relief granted could operate effectively and the assessment process could be redone on merits.

Conclusion: The revising authority was entitled to set aside the appellate order in exercise of suo motu revisional power.

Issue (ii): Whether the revising authority could validly exercise such power without the assessment record being separately called for before it.

Analysis: The objection was not raised before the revising authority, and whether the relevant record had in fact been called for was treated as a question of fact. In the absence of a challenge at that stage, the normal presumption applied that the authority had proceeded in accordance with law. The court also noted that there was nothing on the record to show that the assessment proceedings and the proceedings under the ex parte relief provision were maintained as wholly separate records, and in any event the reference did not permit determination of a question not raised or referred.

Conclusion: The revising authority's action could not be invalidated on the ground that the assessment record was not separately shown to have been called for.

Final Conclusion: The reference failed and the revisional order was upheld, leaving the assessee entitled to the relief granted in revision and to costs.

Ratio Decidendi: Where two proceedings arising out of the same assessment are distinct but connected, the revisional authority may use its statutory suo motu power to set aside the connected appellate order so as to give effective relief in revision; objections not raised before the revisional authority regarding the calling of records cannot be used to defeat that jurisdiction in reference.

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