Regular accounting method controls agricultural income computation unless recorded statutory opinion justifies departure; coffee crop proviso cannot override that rule.

Agricultural income had to be computed under the assessee's regularly employed cash method unless the assessing officer first formed and recorded the statutory opinion that income could not properly be deduced from that method. The coffee crop proviso did not create an unrestricted power to substitute point-based computation; it only operated after the jurisdictional precondition in the main provision was satisfied. Mere signature on the assessment order did not amount to real consent to the altered basis of assessment. On that reasoning, point-based computation was invalid and the regular accounting method governed the assessments.

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Issues: Whether the agricultural income from the assessee's coffee crop could be computed on the point basis instead of the cash method regularly employed, in the absence of a recorded opinion by the Agricultural Income-tax Officer that the income could not properly be deduced from that method, and whether alleged consent to the assessment order validated the computation.

Analysis: Section 7 of the Mysore Agricultural Income-tax Act, 1957 makes computation of agricultural income mandatory according to the method of accounting regularly employed by the assessee. The first proviso permits departure only when the Agricultural Income-tax Officer forms the opinion that the income cannot properly be deduced therefrom, and that opinion is a jurisdictional precondition. The second proviso dealing with coffee crop only prescribes the valuation basis where the first proviso is attracted; it does not confer an unrestricted power to ignore the assessee's regular accounting method. The corresponding rule under the Mysore Agricultural Income-tax Rules, 1957 operates on the same footing. Further, the record did not show any real consent by the assessee to computation on the point basis; mere signature on the assessment order was insufficient.

Conclusion: The computation on the point basis was invalid, and the assessments had to be made according to the cash method regularly employed by the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: Departure from the assessee's regular method of accounting is permissible only upon the assessing authority's recorded opinion that income cannot properly be deduced from that method, and a qualifying proviso cannot be used to dispense with that statutory precondition.

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