TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1974 (2) TMI 4
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....the said statement to justify the imposition of penalty even if the Explanation applied and that it is open to the Appellate Tribunal to consider the appeal, regarding the sustainability of the imposition of penalty under the Explanation. " The judgment in which the sentence sought to be deleted occurred was pronounced in expressing our opinion on the question referred for our opinion by the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal, Cochin Bench, which was in these terms : "Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Appellate Tribunal is correct in law in holding that the Explanation to section 271(1)(c) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, is not applicable to this case ? " For the assessment year 1963-64, the Income-tax Officer felt ....
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....on to section 271(1)(c) is not applicable to the facts of the present case. In the view we have taken, it is unnecessary to go into the question raised by the assessee regarding the loss of books. The order of penalty is quashed and we direct the Income-tax Officer to refund the amount, if collected from the assessee. " It was in the light of and because of this view expressed by the Tribunal that the question whether the Explanation to section 271(1)(c) of the Act would apply to the case of the assessee for the year 1963-64 was referred to this court and in our judgment, in answering the question, we said that the important point to be considered was what the law was at the time the act or omission which was penalised was committed and we....
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.... the point that we have stated clear: "The year of assessment with which we are concerned is 1963-64. It is admitted that the return filed by the assessee for the year is the one dated September 8, 1966. The amount of income disclosed by the return was only Rs. 13,746. The assessment was completed fixing the total income at Rs. 65,570. The income returned was, therefore, less than 80 per cent. of the total income assessed. The Explanation to section 271(1)(c) was thus directly attracted. This means that it must be presumed that the assessee had furnished inaccurate particulars of his income, unless he established that the failure to return the correct income did not arise from any fraud or any gross or wilful neglect on his part. The act o....
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....r may convey an entirely different meaning than that it was intended to convey. The Inspecting Assistant Commissioner has held that the Explanation applied to the case of the assessee. He further held that the extenuating circumstances that an assessee should plead to get over the rigour of the Explanation had not been made out by the assessee before him. We never dealt with the question as to whether those extenuating circumstances existed or whether they were sufficient or whether notwithstanding those extenuating circumstances, if any, the assessee was still liable. In these circumstances, the interpretation placed on the sentence, we think, is throughly unjustified. But, considering the fact that the sentence has been so relied on, we t....
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....power was there even without the section particularly in a court of record which a High Court is and apart from the section what inherent power existed exists now and we have no doubt that as long as we follow the system of jurisprudence we have been following the law will continue to make that power available. Errors can creep in and there can be omissions and if there are accidental errors or omissions, we conceive that we have the jurisdiction to correct those errors and rectify those omissions. The principle is that no act of a court shall ever injure a party. We have been referred by counsel for the department to three decisions, the earliest of which is in Commissioner of Income-tax v. Tehri-Garhwal State. A passage from page 8 had b....