TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2019 (10) TMI 641
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....timber business during the financial year 2015-16, corresponding to the assessment year 2016-17. The petitioner had sold about 13 adjacent agricultural plots to the M/s Believers Church, and while filing his return showed the sale consideration as agricultural income which was exempted from tax under the head of Capital Gains. The return submitted by the petitioner for the assessment year in question was subjected to scrutiny through a notice dated 07.07.2017 issued to the petitioner under Section 143(2) of the Income Tax Act. This was followed by another notice dated 23.4.2018, and later by Ext.P3 notice dated 10.7.2018, where the petitioner was asked to furnish information to the queries raised in the annexure to the said notice. While th....
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....018 was issued to the petitioner giving a summary of the proposals of the department for completing the assessment in relation to the petitioner, and since the time limit for completing the assessment under the Income Tax Act was due to expire, the petitioner was asked to submit his explanation, if any, to the said proposal within a day, making it clear that if no reply was received, the assessment would be completed without any further notice. 2. It is not in dispute that the petitioner submitted his reply to Ext.P15 notice through Ext.P16 communication of the same date. Thereafter, by Ext.P17 order, the assessment in relation to the petitioner for the assessment year 2016-17 was completed by finding that the petitioner was liable to....
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.... only because he had not succeeded in substantiating his claim for exemption, and further, had not offered any satisfactory explanation for the unaccounted income detected, with any reliable documents and hence there was no prejudice caused to the petitioner on account of no hearing having been extended to him prior to passing the assessment order. It is, in particular, pointed out that, had the petitioner disclosed the true and correct information before the Assessing Officer, as he was obliged to do in terms of the Income Tax Act, there would have been no necessity for the department to issue notices to the petitioner calling for documents to substantiate his claim for exemption. The delay in completing the assessment is therefore stated ....
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....f the Income Tax Act would clearly reveal that the department was only seeking for the documents that would substantiate the claim of the petitioner assessee for exemption in respect of a substantial portion of the income that was declared by him in the return. Ultimately, by Ext.P17 assessment order, all that the department did, was to deny the claim for exemption of the petitioner assessee, and while doing so, the department was not obliged to grant any hearing to the petitioner over and above the opportunities that had already been extended to the petitioner to respond to the specific queries raised by the department. In my view, there cannot be a mechanical application of the principles of natural justice in every case and the necessity....