Definite information under Section 34 does not include an appellate recharacterisation of facts; reassessment cannot follow.

Whether a subsequent appellate order amounts to 'definite information' warranting reassessment under Section 34 was addressed: where the assessing officer possessed all material facts at original assessment, a later appellate recharacterisation applying those known facts does not create new definite information and therefore cannot by itself justify reopening an assessment; the proper remedy for the Department is appeal or other appellate processes rather than revision under Section 34. The conclusion is that the appellate decision did not supply the requisite new information to treat income as escaped and reopen the assessment.

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Issues: Whether the order of the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal dated 21 February 1945 constituted a definite piece of information within the meaning of Section 34 of the Income-tax Act, 1922, which led to the discovery that the assessee's income had escaped assessment and thus justified reopening the assessment completed on 15 July 1943.

Analysis: The facts show that the assessing officer had knowledge of the underlying facts when the original assessment was made and had excluded from the assessee's returned income an amount of Rs. 2,06,695 on the basis that it had been disallowed as expenditure in the assessment of the payer. The Appellate Tribunal subsequently allowed that amount as expenditure of the payer under Section 10(2)(xv). Section 34 permits revision where definite information comes to the assessing authority leading to discovery of escaped income. A subsequent appellate decision that applies known facts in a different manner does not, by itself, supply a new definite fact if all material facts were already in the officer's possession. Where the officer made an error despite having full knowledge of the facts, the error is not converted into a basis for revision under Section 34 simply because an appellate tribunal later reached a contrary conclusion; alternative remedies such as appeal are available to the Department.

Conclusion: The order of the Appellate Tribunal did not constitute definite information within the meaning of Section 34 of the Income-tax Act, 1922, and did not justify reopening the completed assessment; the reference is answered in the negative in favour of the assessee.

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