TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1996 (2) TMI 2
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....ssment year 1955-56 ? 2. If the answer to question No. 1 is in the affirmative, then, whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the assessments for 1958-59 to 1962-63 in the status of a Hindu undivided family are valid ? " The reference related to the assessment years 1958-59 to 1962-63, the relevant previous years whereof were B. S. years 1364 to 1368. The assessee was Rash Behari Das Burman, who was governed by the Mitakshara school of Hindu law. It is unnecessary for the purposes of this decision to go into his family history, which is referred to both in the statement of the case placed before the High Court by the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal and the judgment of the High Court, What we now set out is what is re....
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....the properties which were covered by the partition suit was returned by and assessed in the hands of the erstwhile members of the Hindu undivided family. The Income-tax Officer, thereafter, took proceedings under section 147(a) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, and concluded that the assessee's Hindu undivided family had escaped assessment ; this was on the basis that no genuine partition had taken place and that the assessee had made a return which misrepresented the facts. The Income-tax Officer started proceedings under section 148 for the assessment years 1958-59 to 1961-62 and under section 139(2) for the assessment year 1962-63. The assessee filed "nil" returns under protest. The Income-tax Officer rejected the assessee's contention and....
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....5A as that section contemplated an application being made thereunder only when there was already an assessment on the Hindu undivided family ; (iv) the absence of an application under section 25A could not, under these circumstances, give the income-tax authorities any jurisdiction to proceed against the family as such ; (v) section 25A(3) had no operation because there was no assessment on the family, the disputed Hindu undivided family being in the same position as a dead assessee whose income until section 24B was enacted could not be subjected to tax (see Ellis C. Reid v. CIT [1930] 5 ITC 100 (Bom)) ; and (vi) the assessment in the status of a Hindu undivided family when the family had ceased to exist had to be set aside as it ....
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....(vide paragraph 3 of the reference application)" which was annexed to the Revenue's reference application. This statement said, "Records show this Phool Singh to have received a number of notices on behalf of the assessee on widely separated dates". The statement of the case does not say this about Phool Singh. It is the Tribunal that finds facts. It sets these out in the statement of the case whereby it refers questions of law to the High Court. The High Court, in reference proceedings, cannot go behind the facts found. Where the High Court is of the view that it is requisite that facts other than those found need to be ascertained it must call upon the Tribunal to submit a supplemental statement of the case. Even when, as here, the Hig....
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....he Tribunal there was no signed assessment order nor a signed assessment form. That an assessment order has to be signed is established by the judgment of this court in Kalyankumar Ray v. CIT [1991] 191 ITR 634. It said (page 638) : " If, therefore, the Income-tax Officer first draws up an order assessing the total income and indicating the adjustments to be made, directs the office to compute the tax payable on that basis and then approves of it, either immediately or some time later, no fault can be found with the process, though it is only when both the computation sheets are signed or initialled by the Income-tax Officer that the process described in section 143(3) will be complete. . . . All these decisions emphasise that all tha....