The Appellant before the Hon\u2019ble Supreme Court is a Government Corporation engaged in jute industry. While filing the return for the assessment year 1974-75, the Appellant had not claimed any deduction on its liability to pay purchase tax under the provisions of the Bengal Raw Jute Taxation Act, 1941, as the Appellant was under the bonafide <\/em>belief that it is not liable to pay purchase tax. However,\u00a0\u00a0 the AO while passing the assessment order assessed the purchase tax. The Appellant being aggrieved by the assessment order preferred an appeal before\u00a0 the AAC. During the pendency of appeal proceedings, the Appellant raised an additional ground claiming deduction of certain amount on account of liability\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 of purchase tax. The AAC\u00a0 permitted the assessee to raise the additional ground\u00a0 and after hearing the AO, accepted the assessee\u2019s claim and allowed the claim of\u00a0 the assessee. The department being aggrieved filed an appeal before the Appellate Tribunal. The Tribunal held that the AAC had no jurisdiction to entertain the additional ground or to grant relief to the assessee on a ground which had not \u00a0been raised before the AO. The Tribunal further rejected the assessee\u2019s application for reference under section 256(1). On an application under section 256(2), the High Court also refused to call for a statement of the case.<\/p>\n The Appellant being aggrieved by the decision of the High Court filed present SLP before the Hon\u2019ble Supreme Court.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Question that arose for the consideration of the Hon\u2019ble Supreme Court was whether additional grounds can be raised before the appellate Authority in respect\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 of a claim not made during the course of assessment proceedings.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n There is no provision in the Act which put restrictions on the right of the assessee from raising an additional ground in appeal. Further, there is no provision in the Act placing restriction on the power of the appellate authority\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in entertaining an additional ground of appeal. In the absence of any statutory provision, the general principle relating to the amplitude of appellate authority\u2019s powerbeing co-terminus with that of AO should normally be applicable. If the<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n tax liability of the assessee is admitted and if the AO is afforded opportunity of hearing by the appellate authority in allowing the assessee\u2019s claim for deduction\u00a0\u00a0 on the settled view of law, there appears to be no good reason to curtail the powers of the appellateauthority under section 251(1)(a) of the Act.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Reversing the order of the High Court, Hon\u2019ble Supreme Court held that there may be several factors justifying the raising of additional ground in appeal, and each case has to be considered on its own facts. If the AAC\u00a0 is satisfied, he would\u00a0 be acting within his jurisdiction in considering the question so raised in all its aspects. Of course, while permitting the assessee to raise an additional ground, the AAC\u00a0 should exercise his discretion in accordance with law and reason. He must\u00a0 be satisfied that the ground raised was bonafide <\/em>and that the same could not have been raised earlier for good reasons. The satisfaction of the AAC\u00a0 depends upon\u00a0\u00a0 the facts and circumstances of each case and no rigid principles or any hard and fast rule can be laid down for this purpose. (AY.\u00a0 1974-75) (CA No. 1935 of 1981\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 dt. 4-9-1990)<\/p>\n Editorial : CIT v. Kanpur Coal Syndicate [1964] 53\u00a0 ITR 225 (SC) [relied\u00a0 a<\/em><\/strong>nd followed] wherein it has been held that the scope of powers of CIT(A) is co-terminus with that of the Income-tax Officer. He can do what the Income-tax Officer can do and also direct him to do what he has failed to do.<\/p>\n \u201cI have always held\u00a0 that\u00a0 social\u00a0 justice, even to the least the lowliest, is impossible of attainment by force.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n – Mahatma Gandhi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" S. 251 : Appeal – Commissioner (Appeals) \u2013 Powers \u2013 Additional grounds can be raised during the course of appellate proceedings in respect of claims not made before Assessing Officer during the course of assessment proceedings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-income-tax-act"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9S2Rw-3uT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13448,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13447\/revisions\/13448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Issue<\/h3>\n
View<\/h3>\n
Held<\/h3>\n