Recorded reasons showing escapement of income and nondisclosure can sustain reopening beyond four years.

Reassessment initiated after four years is valid where the recorded reasons for reopening specifically refer to escapement of income and assert that the assessee did not fully and truly disclose material facts necessary for assessment. The Assessing Officer's reasons, read as a whole, were sufficient to confer jurisdiction to reopen the assessment, and the Tribunal's contrary view was unsustainable because it did not properly examine those recorded reasons. The legal principle is that jurisdiction for reopening beyond four years arises when the reasons themselves disclose both escapement and nondisclosure of material facts; a finding rejecting that basis without proper scrutiny is perverse.

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Issues: Whether reassessment initiated after expiry of four years from the original assessment was invalid for want of a recorded failure by the assessee to disclose fully and truly all material facts necessary for assessment.

Analysis: The reasons recorded by the Assessing Officer specifically referred to the joint development agreement, the alleged handing over of possession, and the consequent escapement of income, and also asserted that the assessee had failed to disclose the contents of the transaction fully. Such recorded reasons were sufficient to confer jurisdiction to reopen the assessment. The Tribunal, without properly examining the recorded reasons, held in a cursory manner that no such failure had been mentioned, which rendered its finding unsustainable.

Conclusion: The reassessment was held to be validly reopened, and the Tribunal's order setting aside the reassessment was held to be erroneous, in favour of the Revenue.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the recorded reasons for reopening an assessment beyond four years disclose escapement of income and assert nondisclosure of material facts, jurisdiction to reopen is attracted and a contrary finding entered without proper examination of those reasons is perverse.

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