Commissioner of Income Tax vs Smt. Prem Kumari Murdia

This is an appeal by the Revenue against the judgment of the Tribunal, Jodhpur Bench, dt. 23rd July, 2004.

In the case of the respondent-assessee, the AO had made additions as income from undisclosed sources for asst, yr. 1995-96, on the basis of difference in the cost declared by the assessee and cost determined by DVO on CPWD rates. On appeal, the CIT(A) has held that in the facts of the case, the appropriate rate to be taken into consideration would have been PWD rates. Keeping in view the aforesaid, a deduction of 20 per cent was allowed from the cost of construction estimated by the Valuation Officer in order to arrive at a reasonable estimate of cost of construction for the relevant assessment year and sustained the balance of addition on that basis. On further appeal, the Tribunal by order under appeal has upheld the order of the CIT(A) by following a Bench decision of this Court in Commissioner of Income Tax Vs. Dinesh Talwar, the facts of which case were almost the similar.

We are also of the opinion that what shall be taken to be cost of construction of a property constructed is essentially a question of fact and not the question of law. Moreover, the matter is squarely governed by the Bench decision of this Court and does not give rise to any substantial question of law.

Hence, in view of the aforesaid, the appeal is dismissed, as in our opinion, no substantial question of law arises for consideration in this appeal.

Before parting with the case, we may observe that a strange procedure has been adopted by the AO in making a joint assessment order for three assessment years ignoring that each assessment year is a separate unit and its assessment cannot transgress into other assessment. The fact that appeals raising the identical question can be decided by a common order, does not permit AO to pass a common order for number of assessment years.