1982 (2) TMI 133

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.... the assessee requested for a reference under section 18 and he was granted additional compensation of Rs. 50,240 in O.P. No. 64/67 in Sub-Court, Vizag. The ITO reopened the assessment under section 147(a) of the Income tax Act, 1961 ("the Act"), and assessed the additional compensation in that year, since according to the ITO the date of award was within the accounting period relevant to the assessment year 1967-68. 3. Before the ITO the assessee contended that the land acquired by the Municipality was agricultural land and in support of his claim he filed a letter dated 6-2-1977 obtained from the Village Munsiff, stating that the lands in Survey No. 367/A were classified as agricultural lands. The assessee also filed a copy of the orde....

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....ment filed the present appeal before the Tribunal and contended that the AAC is not justified in holding that there is no case for issue of notice under section 148 in the present case, following the decisions cited therein, since the cases cited in the appellate order were not applicable to the present case. It was further contended that the AAC is not justified in holding that the evidence produced before the ITO is sufficient to treat the lands as agricultural lands in the absence of adangal extract. 6. On the other hand, the learned counsel appearing for the assessee supported the order passed by the AAC. 7. We have heard the rival submissions made by the parties. It was the case of the assessee that the original compensation allo....

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....s in order to support his view. 8. Apart from these two decisions, the learned counsel appearing for the assessee had also drawn our attention to an order of the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal, Hyderabad Bench 'SMC', in IT Appeal No. 83(Hyd.) of 1981 for the assessment year 1967-68 in the case of ITO v. Smt. P. Seethamma, dated 30-9-1981, wherein in similar circumstances the Tribunal came to the conclusion that : "It is now a well settled proposition that from the mere fact that ultimately the assessee's income has been assessed at a figure which is taxable, the inference cannot be drawn that the assessee was under an obligation to have furnished a return." A similar view was also adopted by the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal, Hydera....

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....ss we would also like to deal with this appeal on merits. Before the ITO the assessee claimed that the lands acquired by the Municipality were agricultural in nature. In support of his claim he filed a letter dated 6-2-1977 from the Village Munsiff according to which the lands were classified as agricultural lands. The assessee also filed a copy of the order passed by the District Munsiff in which the lands were classified as agricultural lands. But, however, the ITO requested the assessee to produce the adangal extract and since the adangal extract was not produced, he came to the conclusion that the lands were not agricultural in nature. However, the AAC relying upon a notice signed by the Special Tahsildar, Land Acquisition, addressed to....