TMI Blog1991 (4) TMI 122X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... le in law, for 1964-65, 1966-67, 1967-68 and 1970-71 assessment years ?" The reference pertains to the assessment years 1964-65, 1966-67, 1967-68 and 1970-71. The Income-tax Officer had levied penalty under section 273(a) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, for the above years at different amounts. He rejected the assessee's explanation that the advance tax notices under section 210 issued by the Income-tax Officer had been "ignored" by the assessee as they were issued on the basis of such regular assessments which were non-existent, having been set aside in appeal by the Appellate Assistant Commissioner. The assessee had contended that the notices under section 210 were invalid, that it had submitted estimates of the current income under sectio ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... a Division Bench of this Court in D. Swarup, ITO v. Gammon India Ltd. [1983] 141 ITR 841 and contended that under section 273(a), penalty proceedings can be initiated only in the course of any proceedings in connection with the "regular assessment" for any assessment year. In the present case, the penalty proceedings having been initiated during the subsequent assessment pursuant to the setting aside of the original orders in appeal, those subsequent assessment proceedings cannot be considered to be "regular assessment" within the meaning of the expression used in section 273(a) and, hence, the Income-tax Officer had no jurisdiction to initiate the penalty proceedings and that the proceedings thus initiated were wholly invalid and illegal. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e judgment of the Division Bench in Gammon India's case [1983] 141 ITR 841 (Bom). The Division Bench in this case specifically noticed the earlier judgment in Deviprasad Kejriwal's case [1976] 102 ITR 180 (Bom) and distinguished the said judgment on the ground that the 1922 Act did not define the words "regular assessment", which have now been defined in section 2(40) of the 1961 Act. Section 2(40) defines the expression "regular assessment" as under : "2. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,-... 2(40) 'regular assessment' means the assessment made under subsection (3) of section 143 or section 144 ;" It would thus be seen that, unless the proceedings have arisen under section 143 or section 144 of the Act, the proceedi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... re of the view that they could not have been initiated under section 273(a). The assessee's contention in this regard is right and must be upheld. The judgment of the Delhi High Court in Pratap Singh's case [1982] 138 ITR 27 also supports the contention advanced by Miss Patel for the assessee. The Delhi High Court considered section 273 also and, after making a survey of several authorities, held that a regular assessment for purposes of sections 214, 215 and 273 would be the initial or first regular assessment under the Act and, therefore, the penalty proceedings could have been validly initiated only in the course of the initial proceedings. Coming now to the Full Bench judgment [1984] 146 ITR 452 (Bom), on which the Revenue strongly ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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