1967 (3) TMI 5

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..... t was properly served on the assessee within the prescribed period." The relevant facts, in brief, are that the respondent, Shri Daulat Ram Khanna, hereinafter referred to as " the assessee ", is a Hindu undivided family, and the dispute relates to the year of assessment 1945-46. Proceedings under section 34 of the Income-tax Act were started by the Income-tax Officer, B-Ward, Amritsar, against the assessee by issue of a notice on March 29, 1954. The process-server went to the assessee's shop for service of the notice on the assessee on March 30, 1954, but he could not serve it on the assessee because the karta of the assessee was not present. The process-server reported to the Income-tax Officer on the same day that the assessee had refu .....

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..... nvalid and answered the question in the negative. It also refused to allow the counsel for the revenue to raise the point that the notice under section 34 had been served in time even if the service be taken to have been effected after March 31, 1954. He had relied before the High Court on the Indian Income-tax (Amendment) Act, 1959, and the decision of this court in S. C. Prashar v. Vasantsen Dwarkadas. The learned counsel for the revenue, Mr. B. Sen, urges, first, that in view of Commissioner of Income-tax v. Straw Products Ltd., the High Court erred in not allowing the second point to be raised, and, secondly, he contends that the earlier case of the High Court in Jhabar Mal Chokhani V. Commissioner of Income-tax was wrongly decided. A .....

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..... ten words of the sub-rule, underlined above. He says that in a particular case it is in the discretion of the court to order service of the notice by registered post or by affixing a copy thereof and then satisfying itself that the copy has been affixed in a proper manner. In our view, there is great deal of force in what Mr. Sen urges. It seems to us that the last ten words in sub-rule (1) of rule 20 do confer a discretion on the court to adopt any other manner of service. The sub-rule prescribes one manner which the court may follow and this manner consists of two acts : (1) affixing a copy of the summons in the court-house, and (2) affixing it in some conspicuous part of the residential house or the business premises of the defendant. .....

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