Maintainability of appeal on grounds outside revision notice requires merits-based adjudication; remand ordered for fresh consideration.

An assessee may maintain an appeal on grounds that were not covered by the revision notice, even where the assessment was revised only on specified matters. The appellate authority must decide those independent grounds on merits and cannot dismiss the appeal as infructuous without examining them. As the authority failed to adjudicate the unaffected issues, the matter was remitted for fresh consideration limited to those grounds.

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Issues: Whether the appeal was maintainable in respect of matters not covered by the notice under the revisionary provision and whether the appellate authority ought to have decided those grounds on merits.

Analysis: The appeal concerned an assessment for assessment year 2004-05 in which the assessment was revised only in relation to specified matters. The Court held that the assessee was entitled to pursue the appeal on issues that did not form the subject matter of the revision notice. Since the appellate authority dismissed the appeal as infructuous without examining those independent grounds, the matter required fresh consideration on merits to that limited extent.

Conclusion: The appeal on the unaffected grounds was maintainable and the appellate authority should have adjudicated it on merits; the matter was therefore remitted for fresh decision on those grounds.

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