Separate firm registration orders remain revisable despite pending assessment appeals; merger does not bar cancellation under revisional power.

A separate order granting a firm registration under section 26A does not merge with an appealed assessment order and remains revisable under section 33B(1), because the registration order is independent and outside the ordinary appellate scheme. The Commissioner could therefore cancel the registration for earlier years, and pendency of the assessee's appeal for another year did not bar revision because the registration order continued to operate until that appeal was disposed of. The accompanying challenge to directions for fresh assessments and to the absence of a fresh notice also failed, as the revisional order validly altered the assessment machinery after cancellation of registration.

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Issues: (i) Whether the Commissioner could invoke revisional power under section 33B(1) to cancel a firm's registration granted by the Income-tax Officer where the assessment order had been appealed and, for earlier years, the appellate order had been passed; (ii) whether the Commissioner could revise the registration order for a year in respect of which the assessee's appeal was still pending before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner; and (iii) whether the Commissioner's order was invalid for directing fresh assessments and whether the subsequent notice issue under the Income-tax Act was fatal.

Issue (i): Whether the Commissioner could invoke revisional power under section 33B(1) to cancel a firm's registration granted by the Income-tax Officer where the assessment order had been appealed and, for earlier years, the appellate order had been passed?

Analysis: The registration of a firm under section 26A is an independent order which governs only the machinery for assessment and collection of tax. It does not affect the computation of taxable income and is not itself an appealable order at the instance of the Department. The appellate authority's powers under section 31 operate only within the matters made appealable by section 30(1), and an order deliberately left outside that scheme cannot be examined or annulled in appeal. Accordingly, the doctrine of merger applies to the assessment order under appeal, but not to the separate registration order.

Conclusion: The Commissioner was competent to revise and cancel the registration order for the earlier years; the objection based on merger failed.

Issue (ii): Whether the Commissioner could revise the registration order for a year in respect of which the assessee's appeal was still pending before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner?

Analysis: Pendency of an appeal does not suspend the operation of the order under appeal, and the registration order remained in force until the appeal was finally disposed of. The registration order was still an order of the Income-tax Officer and continued to be within the ambit of section 33B(1). The revisional power under that provision is determined by its own terms and is not restricted by any supposed requirement that it be used only in extraordinary cases.

Conclusion: The Commissioner could validly revise the registration order for the pending year as well; this objection also failed.

Issue (iii): Whether the Commissioner's order was invalid for directing fresh assessments and whether the subsequent notice issue under the Income-tax Act was fatal?

Analysis: Read as a whole, the revisional order was directed to the consequential change in the machinery of assessment and recovery after cancellation of registration, not to set aside the appellate assessments in a manner beyond jurisdiction. Once the firm stood treated as unregistered, the Income-tax Officer could proceed under the appropriate machinery without issuing a fresh notice merely because the mode of assessment changed. The later challenge to the Income-tax Officer's procedure did not arise in the appeals against the Commissioner's revisional order.

Conclusion: The objections to the direction for fresh assessments and to the absence of a fresh notice were rejected.

Final Conclusion: The Commissioner's revisional power was upheld, the registration cancellation was sustained for all years in question, and the assessee's challenges to the consequential assessment machinery also failed.

Ratio Decidendi: A separate, non-appealable order of registration under section 26A does not merge in an appellate assessment order and remains revisable under section 33B(1); pendency of an appeal does not bar revision of that separate order.

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