Concealment penalty and revised returns: later disclosure does not erase a knowingly false original return.

Penalty for concealment turns on the assessee's conduct at the time the original return was filed, not merely on whether full particulars were later supplied before assessment. A revised return under section 22(3) can protect a bona fide omission or wrong statement, but it does not cure a deliberate false return or conscious suppression of income. Where later disclosure is prompted by departmental scrutiny and is not truly voluntary, the original default remains operative. On those principles, the concealment penalty under section 28(1)(c) was properly sustained because the assessee had either concealed income or furnished inaccurate particulars in the first instance.

---

---

Issues: Whether penalty under section 28(1)(c) was exigible where the assessee furnished full particulars before assessment but the original return was based on false books and the later disclosure was made after departmental scrutiny had begun.

Analysis: Concealment under section 28(1)(c) is not to be judged merely by the date on which the assessment is made or by the fact that particulars were furnished before assessment. The material inquiry is whether the assessee consciously suppressed income or deliberately furnished inaccurate particulars when the original return was filed. Section 22(3) permits a bona fide revised return where an omission or wrong statement is discovered, but that protection does not extend to a case of deliberate concealment or a knowingly false return. A subsequent disclosure will not erase the original default where the facts show that the later production of particulars was prompted by departmental investigation and was not truly voluntary.

Conclusion: The assessee had either concealed particulars of income in the first instance or deliberately furnished inaccurate particulars in the original return, and penalty under section 28(1)(c) was rightly sustained.

---