Contemporaneous inspection reports may support yield estimation in tax assessment, and writ interference is unwarranted without perversity.

A contemporaneous inspection report was accepted as valid material for estimating yield under the Kerala Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1950, and it was not displaced merely because the assessee relied on an earlier report from a different period. The assessee had statutory avenues to challenge the report and to seek a fresh commission-based enquiry, but those remedies were not effectively pursued. As the revisional authority's modification of the assessment was reasonable and the findings below were neither perverse nor unsupported by material, writ interference was unwarranted and the revisional order stood.

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Issues: Whether the revisional assessment order under section 34 of the Kerala Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1950, based on the inspection report and the estimate of yield for the relevant accounting year, warranted interference in writ appeal.

Analysis: The dispute concerned the assessment for the year 1987-88 under the Kerala Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1950. The inspection report prepared contemporaneously with the relevant accounting year was treated as material evidence for fixing yield, and its evidentiary value could not be discounted merely because the assessee preferred an earlier report relating to a different period. The assessee had an opportunity to challenge the report in the statutory appellate process and to seek a fresh commission-based enquiry under the proviso to section 31(4), but no effective use was made of that remedy. The revisional authority under section 34 modified the assessment in a reasonable manner, and the findings of the authorities below were held not to be perverse or unsupported by material.

Conclusion: The revisional order did not call for interference and was upheld.

Ratio Decidendi: In income-tax assessment disputes, a contemporaneous inspection report is valid material for estimating yield, and writ interference is unwarranted where the statutory remedies to challenge or reassess that material were available but not effectively pursued and the findings are not perverse.

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