Transferred assessment file and appellate authority: original Income-tax Officer could not be directed to file appeal under Section 33(2).

After transfer of an assessment file to another Income-tax Officer, the Commissioner could not direct the former officer to file an appeal under Section 33(2) of the Income-tax Act, 1922. The provision was read as referring to the officer then seised of the case, and the Act did not permit splitting functions in the same assessment between different officers by assigning assessment to one and appellate action to another. On that reasoning, an appeal filed by the original officer was incompetent, and only the transferee officer could properly have been directed to appeal.

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Issues: Whether, after transfer of the assessment file from one Income-tax Officer to another, the Commissioner could validly direct the original officer to file an appeal under Section 33(2) of the Income-tax Act, 1922, and whether such appeal was competent.

Analysis: Section 33(2) empowered the Commissioner, if he objected to an order under Section 31, to direct the Income-tax Officer to appeal to the Appellate Tribunal. The expression used was "the Income Tax Officer", which indicated the officer concerned with the case at the time the appeal was to be filed. More importantly, the Act did not contemplate that the Commissioner could split the functions relating to the same assessment between different Income-tax Officers, authorising one officer to conduct assessment proceedings while another prosecuted the appeal. The power to allocate functions in respect of persons, classes of persons, incomes, classes of income or areas was recognised, but not a power to distribute different stages of the same assessment among different officers. Since the assessment file had already been transferred, the original officer was not the proper officer to file the appeal.

Conclusion: The appeal filed by the original Income-tax Officer was incompetent, and the Tribunal was correct in holding that only the transferee officer could have been directed to appeal.

Final Conclusion: The reference was answered in favour of the assessee, and the Tribunal's dismissal of the departmental appeals was upheld.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an assessment file has been transferred to another Income-tax Officer, the Commissioner cannot direct the former officer to file an appeal under Section 33(2) of the Income-tax Act, 1922, because the power to appeal vests in the officer then seised of the case.

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