1996 (9) TMI 544

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....ave been taken within the period of limitation prescribed thereunder. In order to appreciate the issue it would be advantageous to extract section 22-A in its entirety.              "22-A. Revision by the Commissioner (or Joint Commissioner) of orders prejudicial to revenue.- (1) The Commissioner (or Joint Commissioner) may call for and examine the record of any proceeding under this Act, and if he considers that any order passed therein by any officer subordinate to him is erroneous in so far as it is prejudicial to the interests of the revenue, he may, after giving the assessee an opportunity of being heard and after making or causing to be made such inquiry as he deems nec....

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....ment on which the decision of the Deputy Commissioner had been based. [vide State of Karnataka v. B. Raghurama Shetty [1981] 47 STC 369 (SC)]. 3. While the proceedings were pending in this Court in respect of the Division Bench judgment, on March 18, 1977 the Deputy Commissioner forwarded the records of his office to the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Karnataka, for needful action. The records were received by the Commissioner on March 23, 1977. The office of the Commissioner thereupon prepared a note, paragraph 3 of which read as under:                "The above cases may lie over till the Supreme Court's decision in B.R. Shetty's case [1981] 47 STC 369 is re....

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....ercised within a period of four years from the date of the order sought to be revised. There is no dispute that this stage had long expired when the show cause notice was issued to the assessee. There was no order of stay or injunction issued in that behalf to extend the period of limitation as provided by the explanation to that section. The stand of the department extracted earlier is that since the records were examined on March 23, 1977 the action was initiated within the period of limitation since the limitation whether of 4 years had not then expired; in the case of appellant No. 6, the order of the Deputy Commissioner was of November 4, 1974 and the period of limitation would expire only on November 3, 1978. In other cases also it....