TMI Blog1966 (10) TMI 1X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... notice by a petition under article 226 of the Constitution before the Kerala High Court. The facts and grounds, on which the notice was challenged, were given in an affidavit in support of the petition ; and it appears from that affidavit that the notice was challenged on two grounds. The first ground was that there were no reasons whatever to enable the appellant to believe that any income of the respondent for the year in question had escaped assessment or had been under-assessed. The second ground was that there were no bona fides whatever in the issue of that notice, and that, since there was no reason to enable the appellant to issue the notice, its issue was without the authority of law and lacked jurisdiction. It was averred that the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... appellant in this appeal before us is that the High Court wrongly exercised its jurisdiction in quashing the notice issued by the appellant on a ground which was not raised by the respondent in his petition under article 226 of the Constitution. This submission has to be accepted. Learned counsel appearing for the respondent was unable to show any averments in the affidavit filed on behalf of the respondent where such a ground might have been raised. The respondent, in that affidavit, clearly understood that the notice issued by the appellant was under clause (a) of sub-section (1) of section 34 of the Act, and yet, confined the challenge to the ground that the appellant had no reasons whatever to believe that the income of the respondent ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... sel for the appellant to produce before us copies of the relevant file of the appellant which led to the issue of the notice in question. We have seen the report submitted by the appellant to the Commissioner of Income-tax, and it appears to us that that report, taken together with his letter asking for approval of the Commissioner for issue of notice under section 34(1)(a) which was accompanied by information in proforma " B " indicates that the appellant did have reasons to believe that the income of the respondent had been under-assessed because of reasons mentioned in section 34(1)(a) of the Act. We are, thus, satisfied that the notice issued under section 34(1)(a) was not at all invalid. We may also, in this connection, mention that th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rments made by the appellant should not be accepted. It is true that there was no specific averment in the counter-affidavits against the allegation of the respondent that the purpose of issuing the notice was to try to get over the effect of the earlier decision of the High Court by which that court had prevented the appellant from making a fishing enquiry and proceeding with the matter without even mentioning the grounds on which the production of the books was sought ; but we think that the answer given in the affidavit by stating that the notice was issued validly and did not contravene the earlier orders of the High Court was a sufficient answer to this allegation. For the reasons given above, the appeal is allowed, the order of the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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