Question of law under income-tax reference provisions rejected where account reliability and accounting method were treated as factual issues.

Whether the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal's order gave rise to a referable question of law under section 256(2) was answered in the negative. The Court treated the reliability of accounts and the question whether income, profits and gains could be properly deduced from the assessee's regular method of accounting as matters of fact, not law. It also noted that similar questions had already been declined in earlier years on the same basis. No question of law arose from the Tribunal's order, so the reference application was rejected.

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Issues: Whether the order of the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal gave rise to any question of law so as to justify a reference under section 256(2) of the Income-tax Act, 1961.

Analysis: The application sought a reference on questions arising from the Tribunal's order for the assessment year in dispute. The Court found no material to distinguish the case from earlier years in which similar questions had already been declined as raising questions of fact. It held that the reliability of accounts and whether income, profits and gains could properly be deduced from the method of accounting regularly employed by the assessee are essentially factual matters.

Conclusion: No referable question of law arose from the Tribunal's order, and the application was rejected.

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