Full disclosure and statutory remedies bar writ interference with reassessment proceedings and jurisdictional objections.

Full and frank disclosure is required before extraordinary writ relief is granted; suppression of a material fact in the supporting affidavit justified refusal of a writ of prohibition or certiorari. The text also states that proceedings under the Income-tax Act could not be halted by writ on a jurisdictional objection, because the assessing authority was entrusted with deciding the preliminary facts for action under the reassessment provision, while errors as to assessment or place of assessment were to be pursued through the Act's appellate and case-stated remedies. On that reasoning, collateral writ intervention was treated as unavailable.

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Issues: (i) Whether the petition for a writ of prohibition or certiorari was maintainable when the applicant had suppressed material facts in the affidavit supporting the rule nisi. (ii) Whether proceedings under Section 34 of the Income-tax Act could be interdicted on the ground that the Income Tax Officer lacked jurisdiction, including the question of place of assessment under Section 64 of the Income-tax Act.

Issue (i): Whether the petition for a writ of prohibition or certiorari was maintainable when the applicant had suppressed material facts in the affidavit supporting the rule nisi.

Analysis: The application for an extraordinary writ required full and frank disclosure. The affidavit did not disclose that the petitioner was carrying on business in Delhi during the relevant period, while the petition projected that he had all along been residing and trading in Pakistan. The non-disclosure was treated as a suppression of material facts and a lack of uberrima fides, which by itself justified refusal of discretionary relief.

Conclusion: The writ application was not maintainable on this ground and the petitioner was not entitled to relief.

Issue (ii): Whether proceedings under Section 34 of the Income-tax Act could be interdicted on the ground that the Income Tax Officer lacked jurisdiction, including the question of place of assessment under Section 64 of the Income-tax Act.

Analysis: The statutory scheme entrusted the assessing authority with the initial duty to decide whether information before him justified action under Section 34. The word "discover" was construed as referring to the officer's honest conclusion on the material before him, not to a prior judicial determination by the Court. The proper remedy against an erroneous assessment decision was the appeal and case stated procedure provided by the Act. The objection regarding place of assessment also fell within the statutory mechanism under Section 64 and could not support a writ. Section 67 and the general scheme of the Act reinforced the exclusion of collateral proceedings.

Conclusion: The Income Tax Officer had jurisdiction to proceed under Section 34, and the petitioner's challenge had to be pursued only through the statutory remedies.

Final Conclusion: The petition was misconceived, as discretionary writ relief was barred both by suppression of material facts and by the statutory allocation of decision-making to the income-tax authorities.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the taxing statute entrusts the assessing authority with the power to determine the preliminary facts for action under a reassessment provision, and provides an appeal and case-stated remedy, a writ of prohibition will not lie to arrest the proceedings, especially where the applicant has not come with full and frank disclosure.

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