Penalty under legal fiction treated as section 28 penalty, preserving the assessee's ordinary right of appeal.

A penalty for furnishing a false estimate of advance tax under section 18A(9) was treated in law as a penalty imposed through section 28(1)(c), because section 18A(9) did not itself create the penalty power but applied the section 28 machinery by legal fiction. The proviso to section 18A(9) affected only the quantum of penalty, while the scheme of sections 30 and 47 showed that levy and recovery were to proceed under section 28, preserving the ordinary appellate remedy. An appeal therefore lay to the Appellate Assistant Commissioner and then to the Tribunal, and the contrary view was incorrect.

---

---

Issues: Whether a penalty imposed for furnishing a false estimate of advance tax under section 18A(9) was appealable as an order made under section 28(1)(c).

Analysis: Section 18A(9) did not itself confer the power to levy penalty. It created a legal fiction by deeming the assessee to have deliberately furnished inaccurate particulars and directed that the provisions of section 28 should apply. The penalty power therefore operated through section 28, and the proviso to section 18A(9) merely regulated the quantum of penalty. The court also relied on the scheme of sections 30 and 47, which treated the levy and recovery of such penalty as falling within section 28, thereby preserving the normal appellate remedy.

Conclusion: The order imposing penalty was under section 28(1)(c) read with section 18A(9), and an appeal lay to the Appellate Assistant Commissioner and thereafter to the Tribunal.

Final Conclusion: The reference was answered by holding that the assessee had a competent right of appeal against the penalty order, and the Tribunal's contrary view was incorrect.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a provision creates a legal fiction applying the penalty machinery of another section, the penalty is treated in law as imposed under that section for purposes of appeal and recovery.

---