1985 (1) TMI 28

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.... ?. If the answer to the above is in the affirmative, whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was right in holding that no penalty was leviable on Smt. Sajjan Kumari, the legal representative of the deceased, Shri Bhanu Pratap Singh, in terms of section 18(1)(a) of the Wealth-tax Act, 1957, for late filing of the return in respect of the valuation date of March 31, 1966 ? 2. Whether the Tribunal was justified in holding that the law governing the imposition of penalty for default in late filing of the return would be the one obtaining on the date of satisfaction of the Income-tax Officer and the date of assessment and not that obtaining on the date when the default was committed ? " Brief facts of the ....

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....ct cannot be divorced from the provisions of s. 19(1) and (2) of the Act. It was further observed by the Tribunal that if other provisions of the W.T. Act regarding framing of the assessment and the imposition of penalty, etc., were intended to be automatically applicable to the assessments made under s. 19, there was hardly any purpose in mentioning only ss. 14, 15 and 17 in s. 19(3) of the Act. We have heard Mr. Surolia on behalf of the Department and Mr. Tikam Chand Jain on behalf of the assessee. A perusal of s. 14 of the Act shows that return of wealth is required to be filed by every person, if his net wealth or the net wealth of any other person in respect of which he is assessable under this Act on the valuation date was of su....

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.... established in the present case, it is clear that there was no requirement on the assessee to file the return of wealth under sub-s. (1) of s. 14 of the Act with regard to the wealth of her deceased husband and, in this view of the matter, the provisions of penalty contained under s. 18(1)(a) of the Act cannot be applied. Section 19(2) and (3) of the Act read as under: " 19. Tax of deceased Person Payable by legal representative.-...... (2) Where a person dies without having furnished a return under the provisions of section 14 or after having furnished a return which the Wealth-tax Officer has reason to believe to be incorrect or incomplete, the Wealth-tax Officer may make an assessment of the net wealth of such person and determine th....

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....r or other legal representative, it is silent, so far as s. 18 is concerned. The omission of s. 18 in sub-s. (3) of s. 19 is quite significant, which clearly shows the intention of the Legislature that in case where action would be taken under sub-s. (2) of s. 19 of the Act, question of imposing any penalty on the legal representative cannot arise. In view of the above circumstances, we hold that the Tribunal was right in interpreting s. 19 of the Act to the effect that no penalty under s. 18 could be imposed on a legal representative on whom assessment is made under s. 19 of the Act. We further hold that, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was also right in holding that no penalty was leviable on Rani Sajjan....