2000 (7) TMI 47

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....y the Inspecting Assistant Commissioner on March 14, 1978, holding that the Inspecting Assistant Commissioner had no jurisdiction to impose the said penalty under section 271(1)(c) after the deletion of section 274(2) of the Income-tax Act with effect from April 1, 1976 ?" The factual position is almost undisputed. So far as relevant for adjudication it is as follows : For the assessment year 1973-74 before completion of the assessment, the Assessing Officer, vide assessment order dated March 30, 1976, initiated proceedings under section 271(1)(c) of the Act on the ground that the assessee had concealed or furnished inaccurate particulars of his income. Since the minimum penalty leviable exceeded Rs. 25,000, the Assessing Officer referr....

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....fficer." As on April 1, 1976: "(1) No order imposing a penalty under this Chapter shall be made unless the assessee has been heard, or has been given a reasonable opportunity of being heard... (3) An Appellate Assistant Commissioner, on making an order under this Chapter imposing a penalty, shall forthwith send a copy of the same to the Income-tax Officer." Learned counsel for the Revenue characterised the deletion as a change of forum and to be procedural and assailed the order of the Tribunal. There is no appearance on behalf of the assessee in spite of service of notice. It is true that no litigant has any vested right in the matter of procedural law. But where the question is one of the change of forum, it ceases to be a question ....