Law:

Section:

Section 147(b) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 - Reassessment - Information - ITO received from CBDT, a Board's circular containing information regarding decision of Supreme Court that rubber replantation subsidy received by an assessee was income in his hands - On receipt of said information ITO reopened assessment under section 147(b) and brought to tax subsidy amount received by assessee, since that amount had not been assessed earlier - Tribunal reversed ITO's order on ground that said circular did not contain any information within the meaning of section 147(b) but only an opinion - Whether object of said circular was merely a conveyance of information regarding the pronouncement of the Supreme Court and, therefore, reopening of assessment under section 147(b) was valid - Held, yes Facts For the assessment year 1974-75, the ITO completed the assessment without taking into account the sum received by the assessee during the relevant accounting year as rubber replantation subsidy. The ITO, subsequently received from the CBDT, Circular No. 75 (DI) (IT) (F. No. Audit - 9/1978-79) D.I.T. dated 28-2-1979, containing information regarding the decision of the Supreme Court in V.S.S.V. Meenakshi Achi v. CIT [1966] 60 ITR 253 to the effect that replantation subsidy received by an assessee was income in his hands. Pursuant to the said information, the ITO after issuing a notice under section 148 reopened the assessment under section 147(b) and added the subsidy amount as income of the assessee. On appeal, the Tribunal reversed the order of the ITO stating that the ITO was not justified in acting upon the circular of the CBDT as it did not contain any information within the meaning of section 147(b), but only an opinion. On reference : Held The ITO acts in a quasi-judicial capacity and must, therefore, act independently and on the strength of the information available to him. The mere fact that a circular contains, apart from the information, the opinion of the writer would not by itself make the information invalid and unacceptable, provided it is separable from the opinion. Thus, while the ITO must eschew the opinion, he is entitled to act on the information…

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/digixyei/sldsystempk.com/view/master-layout/view_case.php on line 492