Acquiescence to jurisdiction bars later challenge, and composite tax certificates remain valid if yearly liabilities are separately identifiable.

A writ challenge to certificate proceedings failed where the assessment order, though disposing of five assessment years together, separately identified each year's tax liability and the demand notice reflected those liabilities distinctly. The Court also held that the petitioner could not later deny the assessing officer's jurisdiction after requesting that officer to make the assessment and submitting to the process without protest; acquiescence barred collateral objection. Fresh certificates were likewise not invalid merely because they covered penalties, since the earlier cancellation of other penalty certificates did not govern the later certificates and both tax and penalty demands were sufficiently identified. No ground was made out to interfere with the proceedings.

---

---

Issues: (i) whether the petitioner could challenge, for the first time in the writ proceedings, the validity of the assessment order and the demand notice issued on the basis of a combined assessment for five assessment years; (ii) whether the Income-tax Officer, Special Survey Circle VI, lacked jurisdiction to make the assessment and whether the petitioner could resist the proceedings after having invited and submitted to that officer's jurisdiction; (iii) whether the fresh certificates were invalid insofar as they covered penalties.

Issue (i): whether the petitioner could challenge, for the first time in the writ proceedings, the validity of the assessment order and the demand notice issued on the basis of a combined assessment for five assessment years.

Analysis: The assessment order dealt separately with the tax liability for each year even though it disposed of the assessments together. The objection that the order was illegal or without jurisdiction had not been raised before the Tribunal below and was not specifically taken in the petition. The demand notice followed the assessment and, on the materials before the Court, there was no genuine grievance that the demands were not separately identifiable for each year.

Conclusion: The challenge to the assessment order and demand notice was rejected.

Issue (ii): whether the Income-tax Officer, Special Survey Circle VI, lacked jurisdiction to make the assessment and whether the petitioner could resist the proceedings after having invited and submitted to that officer's jurisdiction.

Analysis: Even on the construction of the Commissioner's order, the expression used could support the Revenue's view. In any event, the petitioner had itself requested that officer to make the assessment and had submitted to his jurisdiction without protest. A party that acquiesces in and invokes a forum's jurisdiction is not entitled to repudiate that jurisdiction later in collateral proceedings.

Conclusion: The jurisdictional objection failed, and the petitioner was held disentitled to relief on account of acquiescence.

Issue (iii): whether the fresh certificates were invalid insofar as they covered penalties.

Analysis: The earlier cancellation of different certificates relating to penalties did not govern the present proceeding, which arose from fresh certificates issued later. There was no binding adjudication invalidating the present certificates on the penalty component, and the demands for both tax and penalty were sufficiently identified in the fresh certificates.

Conclusion: The objection to the inclusion of penalties in the fresh certificates was rejected.

Final Conclusion: No ground was made out to interfere with the certificate proceedings, and the challenge failed in full.

Ratio Decidendi: A party that invites and acquiesces in the jurisdiction of an assessing officer cannot later deny that jurisdiction in collateral proceedings, and a demand or certificate is not invalid merely because it relates to multiple assessment years if the liabilities are separately identifiable.

---