TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2013 (7) TMI 94
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....e respondent / assessee. It was contended on behalf of the respondent that this court did not have jurisdiction to entertain these appeals inasmuch as the assessment order was passed by the Assessing Officer in Jammu, the appellate order was passed by the Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals) at Jammu and the Tribunal's order is also of the Amritsar Bench of Income-tax Appellate Tribunal which had jurisdiction in respect of the appeals from, inter alia, the State of Jammu and Kashmir. It was, therefore, contended that the High Court having jurisdiction over the Assessing Officer at Jammu, who passed the assessment order would have jurisdiction and not this court. 3. On the other hand, the learned counsel for the appellant / revenue submitted that it is this court alone which would have jurisdiction to hear these appeals inasmuch as the 'case' of the respondent has been transferred from the Income-tax Officer, Ward-I(1), Jammu to the Income-tax Officer, Ward-29(1), New Delhi. It was contended that since the 'case' stands transferred to the Assessing Officer in New Delhi, it is this court which would have jurisdiction to entertain these appeals under Section 260-A of the Income-tax A....
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....008-09 by an order dated 27.07.2012 in ITA No.343/Asr/2011. Against that decision, ITA No. 2/2013 has been preferred. 8. On 23.03.2011, while the appeals were pending before the Tribunal, the respondent / assessee sent a letter to the Commissioner of Income-tax, Jammu & Kashmir (Jammu) seeking transfer of its case to Delhi. Pursuant thereto, by an order dated 20.09.2011 issued under Section 127 of the said Act, the case of the respondent / assessee was transferred with effect from 26.09.2011 from the Income-tax Officer, Ward-I(1), Jammu to the Incometax Officer, Ward-29(1), New Delhi. In the meanwhile, the impugned order dated 24.06.2011 passed by the Amritsar Bench of the Tribunal had been received in the office of the Commissioner of Income-tax, Jammu on 05.07.2011. That order was forwarded to the Commissioner of Income-tax (X), Delhi and it was received in his office on 10.10.2011. It is, thereafter that the appeals being ITA No. 148/2012 and ITA No.149/2012 were filed some time in February, 2012. Under similar circumstances, the third appeal being ITA No.2/2013 was also filed in November, 2012. 9. The learned counsel for the respondent / assessee had placed reliance on the fo....
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....egal position in that regard. This court has in Seth Banarsi Dass Gupta's case [1978] 113 ITR 817 held that when an Appellate Tribunal hears and determines an appeal from any particular State, it would be appropriate for the Bench to state the case to the High Court of the State from which the appeal arose. That principle stated in relation to the position that existed before the introduction of section 260A of the Act would, in our opinion, hold good even after the remedy by way of a reference is substituted by a regular appeal. The test for determining the jurisdiction of the High Court would be whether the assessment proceedings were completed within its territorial limits. Viewed thus, not only were the assessment proceedings in the instant case completed in Bulandshahar, but even the appeals arising out of the said proceedings were heard and disposed of by the Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals), Meerut. We have in that view no difficulty in holding that an appeal against the order passed by the Tribunal even though located in Delhi ought to be filed in the High Court at Allahabad." 11. These three decisions would, therefore, apparently tend to support the case of the respon....
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.... under section 260A of the Act. In support of his argument, learned counsel relied upon Suresh Desai and Associates v. CIT [1998] 230 ITR 912 (Delhi) and CIT v. Digvijay Chemicals Ltd. [2007] 294 ITR 359 (Delhi).We have gone through both these decisions with the assistance of learned counsel for the parties and while the accepted general principle is that the situs of the Assessing Officer is what determines the High Court having jurisdiction over the case, none of these decisions deals with one important aspect of the case (because it did not arise), namely, what would happen when the situs of the Assessing Officer is changed by an order passed under section 127 of the Act, as has happened in the present case. One important fact in both the above decisions was that even though there was a transfer of jurisdiction from one place to another, the proceedings in respect of the relevant previous year had not been transferred from one jurisdiction to another. In Suresh Desai [1998] 230 ITR 912 (Delhi), the relevant assessment year was 1980-81 and as mentioned in the decision, the assessment records of the petitioner were ordered to be transferred from Bombay to Delhi but the transfer di....
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....o the assessment year 1980-81. In Digvijay Chemicals (supra), the relevant assessment year was 1993-94, but the assessment records, which were transferred to Delhi pertained to the assessment years 1988-89, 2000-01 and 2001-02. In other words, the assessment records for the relevant assessment years had not been transferred in those cases and, obviously, the question of considering the provisions of the Explanation to Section 127(4) of the said Act, which explained the meaning of the word 'case', had not been considered in those decisions. 13. The point in issue in the present case is entirely covered by the decision in the case of Sahara India (supra). The learned counsel for the respondent had placed reliance on the decision of the Punjab & Haryana High Court in the case of Motorola India (supra) to contend that the Explanation to Section 127 of the said Act with regard to the meaning of the expression 'case', was wholly misplaced because Section 120 of the said Act did not deal with the jurisdiction of the Tribunal or the High Court and it only had a reference to the income-tax authorities under the said Act which obviously did not include the ITAT or the High Court. The Punjab....
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....ommissioner is empowered to transfer any case from one or more Assessing Officers sub-ordinate to him to any other Assessing Officer. It also deals with the procedure when the case is transferred from one Assessing Officer subordinate to a Director General or Chief Commissioner or Commissioner to an Assessing Officer who is not subordinate to the same Director General, Commissioner or Commissioner. The aforementioned situation and the definition of the expression "case" in relation to jurisdiction of an Assessing Officer is quite understandable but it has got nothing to do with the territorial jurisdiction of the Tribunal or High Courts merely because section 127 of the Act dealing with transfer has been incorporated in the same Chapter. Therefore, the argument raised is completely devoid of sub-stance and we have no hesitation to reject the same." 14. We are afraid and with respect we say so that we are unable to agree with the views expressed by the Punjab & Haryana High Court and are bound to follow the decision of this court in Sahara India (supra). We are not inclined to accept the view taken by the Punjab & Haryana High Court, because while it is true that the reference to t....