Settlement Commission jurisdiction depends on full and true disclosure; limited judicial review upheld the adverse finding.

A settlement application requires full and true disclosure of income and material facts before the Settlement Commission can exercise jurisdiction. Judicial review of a Commission order is confined to illegality, perversity, bias, fraud, malice, or statutory breach, and the High Court cannot reappreciate evidence as an appellate forum. On the facts, the assessee participated throughout, did not object to the procedural course when issues arose, and the Commission's finding that there was no clean hands disclosure was not shown to be perverse or unlawful. The challenge therefore failed, and the Commission's order was upheld.

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Issues: Whether the impugned order of the Settlement Commission was vitiated by jurisdictional errors in the conduct of the settlement proceedings.

Analysis: An assessee invoking settlement jurisdiction must make a full and true disclosure of income and material facts. The scope of judicial review over a Settlement Commission order is limited to illegality, perversity, bias, fraud, malice, or contravention of the statute, and the High Court cannot reappreciate the evidence as an appellate forum. The assessee participated in the proceedings at every stage, did not object before the Settlement Commission to the alleged procedural objections when they arose, and allowed the proceedings to continue on the basis of the orders already passed. The Commission found that the assessee had not come with clean hands and had not made full and true disclosure. That factual finding was not shown to be perverse or vitiated by any legal infirmity. The contention that the Commission ought to have quantified the tax liability notwithstanding the defective disclosure was rejected, because such jurisdiction depends on the statutory precondition of full and true disclosure.

Conclusion: The challenge to the Settlement Commission's order failed; the order was not vitiated by jurisdictional error and the finding against the assessee was upheld.

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