Law:

Section:

Section 16A(4) and (5) of the wealth-tax act, 1957-Valuation officer-Reference to-Whether valuation made by valuation officer without proper consideration of objections raised by assessee and without apprising assessee of full details of material relied upon by him violated principles of natural justice-Held, yes Facts In response to a preliminary valuation report served on him by the Valuation Officer, the petitioner filed his objections citing, inter alia, five instances of sale of property which were contiguous to the assessee's properties and one such instance related to a property which was acquired under the Land Acquisition Act. The Valuation Officer rejected these objections on the ground that the instances quoted by the petitioner did not reflect the true sale value. He determined the valuation on the basis of 'long list of sale instances' and 'statistical data' available in his office, details of which were not made available to the petitioner. On writ: Held Under section 16A(4) and (5 ), the Valuation Officer exercises a quasi-judicial function. He has to act judicially. He should act fairly and bona fide, as is the case with all statutory functionaries, and should take into account only relevant materials, eschewing from consideration all irrelevant materials. In rejecting the petitioner's objections, the Valuation Officer totally ignored the fact that one of the cases relied upon by the assessee was that of an award made in land acquisition proceedings by a public authority. To say casually that the instances quoted by the petitioner did not reflect the correct market value, was really non-application of the mind by the Valuation Officer to the facts and circumstances of the case. The 'long list of sales instances' and 'certain statistical data' available in his office which were relied upon by the Valuation Officer, were admittedly never put to the assessee before the passing of the order. On the face of it, this failure on the part of the Valuation Officer violated the principles of natural justice. Consequently, the impugned valuation report was legally infirm, null and void and had, therefore, to be quashed. The Valuation Officer was, however,…

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