Appellate enhancement is confined to items examined in assessment and cannot introduce a new source of income.

An appellate authority's power to enhance assessment is wide, but it is confined to items or sources of income considered by the assessing officer and examined for taxability. It cannot be used to introduce a new source of income at the appellate stage, including charity collections that were not part of the original assessment process. Applying that principle, the charity receipt could not be brought to tax in enhancement proceedings, and the Tribunal's view that the enhancement was beyond jurisdiction was upheld.

---

---

Issues: Whether the Appellate Assistant Commissioner had jurisdiction, in an appeal by the assessee, to enhance the assessment by bringing to tax a receipt from charity that was not considered by the Income-tax Officer.

Analysis: The power of enhancement under the appellate provision is wide, but it is confined to items that were before the Income-tax Officer and were considered by him for the purpose of assessment. Enhancement cannot be used to introduce a new source of income or a receipt that was never subjected to the assessment process. The receipt in question was not shown to have been considered by the Income-tax Officer from the point of view of its taxability, and in any event charity collections were treated as a different source and not as trading receipts. The governing principle emerging from the earlier Supreme Court rulings is that an appellate authority cannot enlarge the assessment by discovering new income outside the scope of the original assessment.

Conclusion: The Appellate Assistant Commissioner had no jurisdiction to enhance the assessment by adding the charity collections, and the finding of the Tribunal was correct.

Final Conclusion: The reference was answered against the Revenue, and the assessee succeeded on the jurisdictional question concerning enhancement.

Ratio Decidendi: In an assessee's appeal, enhancement is permissible only in respect of items or sources of income considered by the assessing authority; a new source of income not examined for taxability cannot be introduced at the appellate stage.

---