Law: Income Tax Act, 1961

Section: 256

Income-tax---Reference---Income from business---Adventure in the nature of trade--¬Tribunal finding that repeated sales and purchases in agricultural lands not adventure in nature of trade ---No systematic business activity involved--¬Surplus on sale of land not to be assessed as business income---Findings based on appreciation of evidence are of fact---No question of law arises--¬Indian Income Tax Act, 1961, S.256(2). The assessee sold agricultural land and claimed that the surplus on the sale of land was not chargeable to tax as business income. The Income¬tax Officer found that the repeated sales and purchases in the prior years also in lands by the assessee were an adventure in the nature of trade and assessed the surplus amount as income from business and the finding of the Income¬tax Officer was also confirmed by the Deputy Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals). The Tribunal, on appeal, negatived the findings of the authorities below and held that the assessee had purchased agricultural lands situated outside the urban area and, according to the certificate of the Patwari, sold these lands as agricultural lands. The assessee did not undertake either conversion of agricultural lands into non-agricultural lands or division of the lands into plots. The lands in question were assessed to land revenue and the assessee raised crops in these lands. On an application to direct a reference: Held, dismissing the application, that it is well-settled that findings of fact based on appreciation of evidence do not give rise to any referable question of law and, accordingly, the finding that the assessee never engaged in any systematic business activity in land was a finding of fact and no question of law arose from the order of the Tribunal. JUDGMENT N. K. JAIN, J.---By this application under section 256(2) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, the applicant---Department seeks a direction to the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal, Indore, to state the case and refer the undernoted questions said to be of law for the opinion of this Court, arising out of its order, dated July 24, 1991, passed in I.T.A. No.675/(Ind.) of 1987 and its refusal to refer the case by order, dated December…

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