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TMI Blog2016 (7) TMI 1311X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ed the offer of settlement of the applicants and granted immunity from penalty and prosecution. The Department has challenged this order primarily on two grounds; firstly, that the Settlement Commission committed a serious error in estimating profit of the assessee at the rate of 15 per cent of the own money received in the course of business of construction. According to the Department, the entire own money receipts were in the hands of the assessee whereas the Commission accepted the suggestion of the assessee that out of on money receipts, substantial portion close to 85 per cent would go in expenditure. The second contention of the Revenue is that during the course of settlement proceedings, the assessee's revised offer of settlemen ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s stage of examining legality of the order passed by the Settlement Commission, we do not see that the Settlement Commission committed breach of any provisions of the Act. The Settlement Commission has examined material on record, given its own findings and made observations and come to conclusions which cannot be said to be perverse or that the order was contrary to any of the provisions of the Act. Recognising the limitation of judicial review by the High Court in exercise of writ jurisdiction against the order of Settlement Commission, we do not find any justifiable grounds for interference in this respect. 7. Coming to the question of disclosures, we may notice that under section 245-C of the Act, an assessee at any stage of a case re ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... were concluded and order was reserved at which stage, the assessee filed revised settlement application declaring additional income of Rs. 11.41 crores. The Settlement Commission thereafter passed an order on 17.11.1994 deciding to proceed with the application of settlement. The Settlement Commission thereupon asked the Commissioner to furnish a further report. The Commissioner in his report dated 30.8.1995 contended that the income disclosed by the assessee should not be treated as true and correct and asserted that the total unaccounted income of the assessee was to the tune of Rs. 187.09 crores. Hearing of the case commenced before the Settlement Commission. During the course of such hearing, the assessee made a further disclosure of un ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... a fresh application in relation to the same case by withdrawing the earlier application. In this regard, Section 245C(3) of the Act which prohibits the withdrawal of an application once made under sub-section (1) of the said Section is instructive in as much as it manifests that an assessee cannot be permitted to resile from his stand at any stage during the proceedings. Therefore, by revising the application, the applicant would be achieving something indirectly what he cannot otherwise achieve directly and in the process rendering the provision of sub-section (3) of Section 245C of the Act otiose and meaningless. In our opinion opinion, the scheme of the said Chapter is clear and admits no ambiguity. 31. We are convinced that, in the i ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rt. Ratio of this judgment is that the true and full disclosure of the income must be made at the initial stage and large scale remissions in such disclosure itself would show that the initial disclosures were not true. 11. However, the facts of the present case are somewhat different. The applicants had initially offered on money rotation of Rs. 25 lakhs, Rs. 21 lakhs and Rs. 30 lakhs respectively and income at the rate of 12.5 per cent thereof by way of interest earned which during the course of assessment proceedings was revised to Rs. 50 lakhs, Rs. 50 lakhs and Rs. 75 lakhs respectively with rate of return at 15 per cent. With respect to revised rate of return, even counsel for the Revenue would not be in a position to argue that the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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