Provisional assessment materials must be considered in final reassessment, but the assessing authority must decide independently.

Where section 28(7) requires a provisional assessment order and supporting materials to be forwarded to the assessing authority, those materials must be considered when making the final assessment or reassessment, but the authority must apply its own mind and decide independently. The revisional authority's observations and directions were not set aside because they did not, on their face, remove the assessing authority's statutory discretion; the proper safeguard was a clarification that the assessment must be made uninfluenced by those remarks. The appeal therefore failed and the challenged order remained in place.

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Issues: (i) Whether, on a provisional assessment made under section 28(6), the assessing authority is entitled and required under section 28(7) to consider the provisional order and accompanying materials while making the final assessment or reassessment. (ii) Whether the revisional authority's observations and direction in the impugned order were liable to be set aside on the ground that they would prejudice the assessee or fetter the assessing authority's discretion.

Issue (i): Whether, on a provisional assessment made under section 28(6), the assessing authority is entitled and required under section 28(7) to consider the provisional order and accompanying materials while making the final assessment or reassessment.

Analysis: Section 28(7) requires the officer who makes the provisional assessment to forward the provisional order together with the relevant documents and materials to the assessing authority. The assessing authority must then complete the assessment or reassessment on the basis of those materials. The scheme of section 28 is aimed at preventing evasion of tax, and the provisional material cannot be ignored when the final assessment is taken up. At the same time, the assessing authority must act independently and exercise its own discretion on the materials placed before it.

Conclusion: The assessing authority is entitled to examine the provisional assessment and the accompanying materials and proceed to assessment or reassessment under section 28(7).

Issue (ii): Whether the revisional authority's observations and direction in the impugned order were liable to be set aside on the ground that they would prejudice the assessee or fetter the assessing authority's discretion.

Analysis: The impugned observations and directions were not treated as destroying the statutory discretion of the assessing authority. The Court held that the proper course was to clarify that the assessing authority must not be influenced by those observations and must decide the matter independently under section 12A or section 12. On that basis, the impugned order did not call for interference.

Conclusion: The revisional authority's observations and direction were not set aside.

Final Conclusion: The appeal failed, and the order under challenge was left undisturbed, with only a clarification that the assessing authority must decide the matter independently and uninfluenced by the revisional observations.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the statutory scheme requires transmission of a provisional assessment and supporting materials to the assessing authority, those materials may be considered in the final assessment or reassessment, provided the assessing authority independently applies its mind.

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