TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1993 (3) TMI 83
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....ducting their search, they requested the income-tax authorities to come and conduct raid in terms of section 132 of the Act. According to the petitioner, the materials seized cannot be categorised as unexplained investment, expenditure or any bullion, jewellery or other valuable articles not recorded in the books of account. According to it, the amounts expended which were not recorded in the books of account were not in the nature of any amount borrowed or repaid on hundi so as to attract the application of the provisions of sections 68, 69, 69A, 69B, 69C and 69D of the Act. At the relevant time, the petitioner was going in for a major public issue as promoter in respect of a fully owned subsidiary by name Indian Charge Chrome Limited (in short, "the ICCL") involving an estimated amount of Rs. 215 crores. A public issue of 208 lakhs equity shares of Rs. 10 each for an Orissa-based company was a large endeavour and involved great risk and the petitioner could ill afford any adverse publicity in any form. The petitioner wanted to Avoid unfavourable reaction and adverse publicity which were likely to affect the subscription to the public issue of shares, the petitioner wanted to bypa....
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....nti, learned counsel, urged that the exercise of power under section 263 is dependent upon the existence of certain objective factors and it is not impermissible for the court to examine whether such factors are relevant for exercise of the powers when a challenge is thrown to the existence of such factors, and such challenge is met by placing before the court factors which the statutory authority considers to be relevant for the exercise of the power. Reliance is placed in support of the submission on a decision of the Calcutta High Court in Russell Properties Pvt. Ltd. v. A. Chowdhury, Addl. CIT [1977] 109 ITR 229. Learned counsel for the Revenue, on the other hand, contended that whether the materials do exist or not can be considered by the Commissioner after the assessee submits its reply. It is contended that, if the petitioner satisfies the Commissioner about the non-desirability to proceed further, certainly the Commissioner shall not proceed with the matter. But, whether materials exist for exercise of power or not can be gauged only after the assessee-petitioner submits its reply and participates in the proceeding. The petitions are labelled to be premature. The petitione....
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....h appeal. (2) No order shall be made under sub-section (1) after the expiry of two years from the end of the financial year in which the order sought to be revised was passed. . . . " There is nothing in the Act imposing limits on the powers of the Commissioner under section 263 of the Act to orders which are not appealable or from which appeals have been preferred. Therefore, the Commissioner is competent to revise an order under section 263 even when an appeal is pending therefrom. The Revenue has no right of appeal to the Appellate Assistant Commissioner against any order passed by the Assessing Officer. Therefore, section 263 has been enacted to arm the Commissioner with the power of revising any order of the Assessing Officer, where the order is erroneous and the order has resulted in prejudice to the interests of the Revenue. The decision of the Supreme Court in the case of CIT v. Amritlal Bhogilal and Co. [1958] 34 ITR 130, establishes that it is open to the Commissioner to revise an assessment order while an appeal against it is pending before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner because the Assessing Officer's order must be regarded as subsisting and valid in law des....
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....enue. We are not satisfied that this is a case where our interference is called for at this juncture. The Commissioner has referred to certain materials to come to a prima facie view that the assessment made by the Assessing Officer was done in a perfunctory manner without proper examination of the records and without making investigation as was required. As observed by the apex court in Rampyari Devi Saraogi v. CIT [1968] 67 ITR 84 and Smt. Tara Devi Aggarwal v. CIT [1973] 88 ITR 323, the Commissioner may consider an order of the Assessing Officer to be erroneous not only if it contains some apparent error of reasoning or of law or of facts on the face of it but also where there has been failure to make inquiries which were called for in the circumstances of the case. The petitioner's assertion is that the materials referred to were duly considered and, therefore, the notice is an abuse of the process of law. These aspects can be highlighted by the petitioner in his show cause reply. If the Commissioner is satisfied that the materials on which the proposed action under section 263 has been initiated had been considered and adjudicated upon, he is obligated to drop the proceedin....