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Judgment
ASHOK BHAN, J. :
This order shall dispose of IT Appeals 2 and 3, both of 1980. Facts are taken from IT Appeal No. 2 of 1980.
Shortly stated, the facts are :
CIT, Haryana, Rohtak, has filed this appeal under s. 269H of the IT Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) against the order dt. 19th December, 1979 of the Tribunal, Chandigarh Bench, Chandigarh whereby the order dt. 31st May, 1979, passed by the IAC of Income Tax Acquisition Range, Rohtak as the Competent Authority under s. 269F(6) of Chapter XX-A of the Act, acquisitioning the property in dispute, has been struck down.
One Prahlad Singh, transferor (hereinafter referred to as the transferor) transferred 311 square yards of land with two office rooms measuring 10'' x 10'' and 10'' x 8'' by way of sale deed dt. 14th August, 1975 to one Vinod Gupta, transferee (hereinafter referred to as the transferee) for an apparent consideration of Rs. 20,000. On a report by the Inspector of IT that the fair market value of the property in dispute was Rs. 41,000 and after recording its satisfaction under s. 269AC, competent authority initiated the acquisition proceedings by publication of the notice in the official gazette on 24th April, 1976. Transferor and the transferee were served on 8th April, 1976 and 5th April, 1976 i.e. prior to the publication of the notice in the official gazette. Competent Authority passed the order under s. 269F(6) acquiring the property on 31st March, 1979, against which the transferee filed an appeal before the Tribunal. Tribunal, vide its impugned order dt. 19th December, 1979, accepted the appeal and set aside the order of the competent authority on merits.
We are not going into the merits of the controversy as we are disposing of the appeal on another ground i.e. the question as to whether the notice served on the transferor or the transferee before the initiation of the proceedings would invalidate the acquisition proceedings including the order of acquisition was considered by us in IT Appeal No. 3 of 1979, decided today. It was held that service of notice on the transferor or the transferee before the publication in the official gazette under sub-s. (1) vitiated the proceedings and which was not a mere irregularity. It was held in the aforesaid appeal as under :
"In the result, it must be held that the notice served on the transferor and the transferee on 30th July, 1973, before it was published in the official gazette was illegal and all subsequent proceedings including the order acquiring the property under s. 269F(6) of the Act stood vitiated. We, therefore, uphold the impugned order of the Tribunal setting aside the order of the competent authority".
For the reasons stated in IT Appeal No. 3 of 1979, this appeal is dismissed with no order as to costs.