TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2024 (3) TMI 619
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....mption under Section 10(23C) (iv) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (the Act). 2. Petitioner is an institution formed and established with the primary object of promoting, advancing and protecting trade, commerce and industry in India. It has been regularly filing return of income since its inception. According to petitioner, it qualifies for claiming exemption under Section 10(23C) (iv) of the Act. 3. Petitioner states that the Central Government had notified petitioner as an institution qualifying for this exemption for Assessment Year 1977-1978 to 2000-2001. Thereafter, upto Assessment Year 2008-2009, Revenue has granted it exemption under Section 11 of the Act as a charitable institution. 4. Respondent no. 2 rejected petitioner's applicati....
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....ent Commission passed the impugned order. Mr. Suresh Kumar also stated that the judgment of the High Court relied upon by Mr. Thakkar as also the orders passed by ITAT for subsequent Assessment Years from 1998-99 onwards were passed after the order of the Settlement Commission. These submissions of Mr. Suresh Kumar are not acceptable. The Hon'ble Apex Court in Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax, Rajkot vs. Saurashtra Kutch Stock Exchange Ltd. has held that a judicial decision acts retrospectively. The Judges do not make law, they only discover or find the correct law. The law has always been the same and if a subsequent decision alters the earlier one, the later decision does not make a new law. It only discovers the correct principle of ....
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....r find the correct law. The law has always been the same. If a subsequent decision alters the earlier one, it (the later decision) does not make new law. It only discovers the correct principle of law which has to be applied retrospectively. To put it differently, even where an earlier decision of the Court operated for quite some time, the decision rendered later on would have retrospective effect clarifying the legal position which was earlier not correctly understood. Salmond in his well-known work states; "... the theory of case law is that a judge does not make law; he merely declares it; and the overruling of a previous decision is a declaration that the supposed rule never was law. Hence any intermediate transactions made on....
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.... 6. Sri Reddy is perhaps right in saying that the officers were not actuated by any mala fides in passing the impugned orders. They perhaps genuinely felt that the claim of the assessee was not tenable and that, if it was accepted, the Revenue would suffer. But what Sri Reddy overlooks is that we are not concerned here with the correctness or otherwise of their conclusion or of any factual mala fides but with the fact that the officers, in reaching in their conclusion, by passed two appellate orders in regard to the same issue which were placed before them, one of the Collector (Appeals) and the other of the Tribunal. The High Court has, in our view, rightly criticised this conduct of the Assistant Collectors and the harassment to the ass....