Allowing the appeal of the assessee the Court held that ; it was incumbent upon the Department to have completed the penalty proceedings and passed an order within the prescribed period of limitation of six months. The Department’s appeal before the Tribunal was never heard, no effective proceedings were held nor was any order passed. The assessee was not notified about the filing of the appeal, its pendency or its withdrawal. According to S.275(1A) , the expiry of six months prescribed was to be reckoned “from the date of completion of the proceedings or from the end of the month in which the order of the Commissioner (Appeals) or the Tribunal was received”. It was an adjudicatory “order” which culminated in “the proceedings”, an order that determined, inter alia, the rights of the parties finally, that was to be deemed a terminus a quo for the completion of penalty proceedings. The dependence of the period of the limitation upon whether an order became final at the instance of one party would leave the legal position inchoate and unsatisfactory. An interpretation that permitted certainty had to be adopted. The order of the Commissioner (Appeals) provided a fixed date from which to reckon the end of the period of limitation. The absence of an appeal by the assessee against the order of the Commissioner (Appeals) meant that at least with respect to the amount that it had accepted in the adjudicatory order as an addition, the penalty proceedings survived. There was no occasion for further penalty proceedings given that the issue might have been rendered debatable, even in the eventuality of an order favouring the Department. The order of the Tribunal holding that the penalty order was within the period of limitation was unsustainable. ( AY. 1989-90)