TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2006 (7) TMI 168
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....he business premises of the assessee were searched and pursuant to a notice, the assessee filed an original return on 2nd July, 1996 for the block period asst. yr. 1994-95 to 20th Nov., 1995 disclosing nil income. Thereafter, he filed a revised return showing the income at Rs. 30,50,000 on 26th Nov., 1996. The Asstt. CIT, Circle-I, Indore assessed the income at Rs. 30,50,000 on 29th Nov., 1996 under Section 158BC of the IT Act, 1961 (for short the Act). Aggrieved, the assessee preferred an appeal on 30th Dec., 1996 before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Indore Bench, Indore (for short the Tribunal) under Section 253 of the Act. 3. When the appeal was pending before the Tribunal, Kar Vivad Samadhan Scheme, 1998 (for short KVSS) was intro....
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.... the Tribunal, however, did not accept the contention of the Department that the assessee not having paid the tax on the return of income, the appeal was not maintainable in view of the provisions of Section 249(4) of the Act. But the Tribunal held in the said order that since the assessee had given his consent to the assessment order, it had lost the right to appeal against the said assessment order and hence the appeal filed by the assessee was not competent and void ab initio. In the said order dt. 26th Nov., 2001, the Tribunal also observed that the assessee had no right to appeal and thus, the appeal shall be treated to have never been filed and the Department is free to take action against the assessee. 5. Thereafter, the assessee fi....
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.... 254 of the IT Act made by the assessee? (2) Whether any ground was made out for entertaining the application made under Section 254 of IT Act and if so, whether these grounds satisfy the requirement of Section 254 of IT Act, entitling the Tribunal to rectify their main order passed in appeal? 7. Mr. R.L. Jain, learned senior counsel for the appellant- Department submitted that under Section 254(2) of the Act, the Tribunal has the power only to rectify any mistake apparent from the record but by the impugned order, the Tribunal has not just corrected a mistake apparent from the record, but has reconsidered the contentions of the learned Counsel for the parties, which were raised at the hearing of the appeal and passed a fresh order holdi....
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....under the aforesaid Sub-section (2) of Section 254 of the Act, the Tribunal can only rectify any mistake apparent from the record and cannot rehear an appeal and reverse its findings on the contentions raised by the parties at the time of hearing the appeal. Furthermore, mistakes apparent from the record would mean palpable mistakes on the face of the record and not mistakes which the Tribunal will come to learn from the long-drawn arguments advanced by the learned Counsel for the parties. 10. In the present case, we find from the records that a contention was raised on behalf of the assessee before the Tribunal at the time of hearing of the appeal that preliminary objections raised by the Department to the appeal filed by the assessee are....
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....aken by the Tribunal may have been an erroneous view as contended by the assessee but the error if any in the order of the Tribunal could be corrected in an appeal before the High Court and not on an application under Section 254(2) of the Act which is confined to only rectify the mistakes apparent from the record. 11. As a matter of fact, we find that in the impugned order dt. 16th Jan., 2004 of the Tribunal on the application filed by the assessee under Section 254(2) of the Act that the Tribunal has relied on the decision of the Madras High Court in CIT v. D.P.F. Textiles Ltd. [2000] 241 ITR 548(Mad) of Bombay High Court in Ahmedabad Electricity Co. Ltd. v. CIT [1993] 199 ITR 351(Bom) , of Allahabad High Court in Gauri Sahai Ghisa Ram v....