TMI Blog2014 (2) TMI 123X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e (26) of section 10 of the Act will be available to the members of the scheduled tribe residing "in any areas" specified in the said section - members of the scheduled tribe residing in other part of the country other than the one and specified under section 10(26) of the Act are not entitled to the benefit of section 10(26) of the Act – the petition is disposed of with a direction to the petitioners to furnish a certificate to the respondent-employer as required under the provisions of the Act – Decided against Assessee. - W. P. (C.) No. 19 of 2012. - - - Dated:- 14-8-2013 - SAHA U. B. AND TALAPATRA S., JJ. JUDGEMENT U. B. Saha J.- The petitioners, 32 in numbers, are employed under the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. (for short "ONGC Ltd."), and presently working under the Tripura Asset of ONGC Ltd. Since all of them belong to the scheduled tribe community, their challenge in this writ petition is the letter of the Income-tax Officer (TDS), Agartala, dated December 1, 2011 (annexure E to the writ petition) and the letter dated December 14, 2011 (annexure G to the writ petition) wherein respondent No. 6, the Asset Manager, ONGC Ltd., Tripura Asset, was informe ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... meaning of article 12) lose the benefit on the mere incident of his being posted out of his place of origin, but within the areas specified under section 10(26) when they are entitled to the benefit of the said section if by an incident he is posted in the same area of his origin. Such an interpretation, it is held, which is dependent upon pure "accident" and exigencies of the service, would lead to wholly arbitrary results and undesirable consequences and ultimately allowed the writ petition filed by the petitioner therein holding that they are exempted from paying income-tax. It is further stated that the impugned letters issued by the respondent is without jurisdiction and thus liable to be quashed. Respondents Nos. 1 to 4 by way of filing an affidavit-in-opposition have stated that in none of the impugned letters, the respondent-employer, particularly, respondent No. 6 was asked to deduct income-tax from the salary of the petitioners, rather respondent No. 6 was requested to instruct the concerned tax deducting authority for compliance with the provisions of the Act and also for furnishing details of the scheduled tribe employees working under his control as required under se ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 011, and informed the respondent-Revenue regarding the decision in the case of Pradip Kumar Taye (supra) and contended that as per their understanding persons responsible for paying any income chargeable under the head "Salaries" are obligated by law to consider the exemption from tax admissible under section 10(26) of the Act and any failure to do so could place them in a position where they could be considered as having not acted bona fide in deducting tax at source under section 192 of the Act and where they could be considered as being in contempt of court. Accordingly, it has further been informed that they are already deducting tax at source in compliance with the provisions of section 192 of the Act and intend to continue to do so in future as well, and their action may not be considered to be in contravention of the provisions of section 192 of the Act. Mr. Biswas, learned Assistant SG at the very outset submits that the instant writ petition is a premature one as the income-tax authority, i.e., respondent No. 4, at no point time, asked the respondent-employer to deduct any income-tax from the salary of the petitioners at source, rather the respondent-Revenue asked for ce ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... come, obviously we would answer to the question as to whether a person, admittedly a schedule tribe of a State in view of the presidential order under clause (25) of article 366 of the Constitution and subsequently migrated to another State either for employment or for any other purpose, is liable to pay tax or not. As the question raised by Mr. Deb relating to the entitlement to the exemption from paying income-tax of the petitioners are not before us, it would not be proper on our part to deal with that aspect. At this stage, it would be profitable to reproduce the relevant provisions of section 10(26) of the Act, which is as under : "10. In computing the total income of a previous year of any person, any income falling within any of the following clauses shall not be included-. . . (26) in the case of a member of a scheduled tribe as defined in clause (25) of article 366 of the Constitution, residing in any area specified in Part I or Part II of the Table appended to paragraph 20 of the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution or in the State of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura) or in the areas covered by Notification No. TAD/R/35/50/109 dated the 23r ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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