TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1957 (2) TMI 79
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....0. This return was filed admittedly without a notice under section 22(2) having been issued to the assessee. The income as set out in the return was scrutinised after enquiry and the Income-tax Officer rejected the return and estimated the assessee's income at Rs. 30,000. We are not now concerned with the correctness of the quantum of the assessment but only with its legality. From the order of assessment the assessee filed an appeal to the Appellate Assistant Commissioner and there urged that the assessment was illegal and invalid. The ground for this contention was that as the return that he had filed declared an income below the taxable limit it was not a "return" within the meaning of the Income-tax Act, and that proceedings could h....
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....by learned counsel for the assessee that in order that the statement of his income filed by the assessee might be a "return" it ought to disclose the receipt of taxable income. We are wholly unable to accept this interpretation of section 22. To a question by us during arguments as to whether a return filed by a person on whom a notice had been issued under section 22(2) was a return where such a return did not disclose taxable income, learned counsel answered in the affirmative but sought to distinguish returns under section 22(1) from those filed under section 22(2). We are unable to follow this argument which seeks to attribute different meanings to the same word "return " used in the several subsections of section 22. This differentiati....
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....ction on the part of the Income-tax Officer under section 22(2) and which was a voluntary return ceases to be a "return" because of the quantum of the income it disclosed. If this argument were right it would follow that where an assessee filed such a return under section 22(1) even within the assessment year the Income-tax Officer would be obliged to proceed as if no return had been filed and be enabled to levy penalties under section 28 for failure to furnish "a return" on the ground that what was filed was not "a return". There would be other anomalous consequences like the inapplicability of section 22(3) and (4) in the case of such persons but as the point is clear we consider it unnecessary to detail the necessary consequence of such ....
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....authorities wished to proceed under section 22(2) they should not do so without a notice under section 34. But as in this case the assessees themselves chose voluntarily to make a return no question of notice either under section 22(2) or section 34 arises." These observations have been quoted with approval by the learned Chief Justice of this Court delivering the judgment of the Bench in Govindarajulu Iyer v. Commissioner of Income-tax, Madras [1948] 16 I.T.R. 391 at 397. No doubt in the case before the Bombay High Court it does not appear whether the voluntary return furnished by the assessee disclosed less than the taxable income. But subject to the argument regarding the meaning of the expression "return" learned counsel for the asse....
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....ty [1948] 16 I.T.R. 119, in so far as the Bombay High Court had held that the assessment proceedings started with the issue of a public notice and expressed it as his opinion that it started only with the filing of a return. That is one of the points of difference between the two decisions but it is not necessary for us to canvass this question as that is outside the controversy raised by the present reference. What is to the point in the present context is a passage which occurs at page 442 of the report: "But in order that the return may be treated as the return called for under section 24(1) (corresponding to section 22(1) of the Income-tax Act) it must be capable of being so treated which clearly it is not. A return under secti....
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....ny the less "a return" within the Act because it disclosed an income below taxable limit. We are reinforced in this conclusion by the explanation of these observations by Chakravartti, C.J., himself in R.K. Das & Co. v. Commissioner of Income-tax, West Bengal [1956] 30 I.T.R. 439, to which we shall refer presently. That the correct view is as above stated has been held by the Bombay High Court in Ranchhoddas Karsondas v. Commissioner of Income-tax, Bombay City [1954] 26 I.T.R. 105, where Chagla, C.J., delivering the judgment of the Court and after referring to the observations of Chakravartti, C.J., of the Calcutta High Court, said: "It is difficult to understand if it is open to a person to file a return which shows an income belo....