AI Structured Summary
Not yet generated for this judgment
Judgment
Balakrishna Ayyar, J.—In all these cases the facts are similar and the question for determination is the same.
The assessees are residents of the former State of Pudukottai. That State merged in the taxable territories on 1-4-1949. Some time in 1952 the
Income Tax Officer, Pudukottai, completed the assessment on the petitioners and served the prescribed notices on them. On 2-3-1956 the
Income Tax Officer issued notices to the assessees u/s 35 of the Income Tax Act mentioning therein that the interest chargeable on the assessees
u/s 18-A (8) of the Act had not been included in their assessment and inviting their objections to the inclusion of such interests in their assessments.
The petitioners made their representations to the Income Tax Officer, but he overruled their objections and purporting to act u/s 35 and Section
18-A (8) of the Act he included in the assessments of the petitioners interest at six per cent per annum for the relevant period. He also issued
notices of demand u/s 29 of the Act making the amounts payable by 31-3-1956.
The contention of the petitioners is that the levy of interest on the tax to which they had been assessed is illegal and that the Income Tax Officer
had no jurisdiction to make the levy. They have come to this court for the issue of an appropriate writ to quash the order of the Income Tax Officer
requiring them to pay interest.
I shall first summarise the contentions of Mr. Srinivasan, the learned Advocate for the petitioners. The petitioners had not been previously
assessed to Income Tax, and so, they are new assessees within the meaning of Section 18-A (3). The subsection requires a new assessee to do
two things : it requires him to send to the Income Tax Officer an estimate of the tax payable by him on that part of his income to which Section 18
does not apply.
Mark, he is required to submit not a return of his income, but an estimate of the tax payable by him. The second thing which the new asses-see is
required to do is to pay the amount of the estimated tax on the dates specified in Sub-section (1). If the new assessee fails to submit an estimate
then no interest can be levied on the amount of the tax to which he is subsequently assessed. All that the Income Tax Officer can do is to levy a
penalty u/s 18-A (9).
This penalty may amount to one and a half times the amount of the tax. u/s 35 of the Act the Income Tax Officer may rectify only a mistake
apparent from the record of the assessment. He cannot possibly say that the omission to impose a penalty is a mistake apparent from the record
because it is a matter of discretion. The Income Tax Office is not under a duty to levy a penalty. Depending upon the circumstances of the case, he
may or may not levy any penalty.
Further as already stated, the power conferred on the Income Tax Officer u/s 35 is only a power to rectify a mistake apparent from the record
of the assessment. The interest on the amount of the tax which has not been paid in advance and which the assessee is required to pay by the
statute is not a part of the assessment. If it were a part of the assessment there would be a right of appeal u/s 30 of the Act. But it has been held
that no appeal lies from the levy of interest on the amount of the tax that has not been paid in advance. Vide Commissioner of Income Tax,
Bombay City Vs. Jagadishprasad Ramnath, . The second paragraph of the headnote of the case reads as follows :
an assesses is not entitled to a right of appeal merely against an order of the Income Tax Officer imposing penal interest u/s 18-A (8) of the
Income Tax Act, for failure to pay advance income-lax.''''
5a. Mr. Srinivasan also referred to Boddu Seetharamaswamy Vs. Commissioner of Income Tax, Madras, to reinforce his contention that the levy
of interest is not part of the process of assessment. On page 160 (of ITR) : (at p. 274 of AIR) it is stated,
The imposition of penal interest mentioned in Section 18-A (6) is not a part of the process of assessment of the income of the assessee. Penal
interest is imposed only to compel an assessee not to underestimate his income during the current year. A special procedure is proscribed fee
imposing it and that is regulated by Section 18-A (6) of the Act.
Before an Income Tax Officer can exercise his powers u/s 35 of the Act to rectify a mistake that mistake must be apparent from the recced of
the assessment. This ""record of the assessment"" is only that part o� the record which leads to the determination and ascertainment of the tax
payable and no more. Again, before it can properly be said that a mistake is apparent from the record it must be something very obvious and
manifest.
A mistake to establish which a very elaborate process of reasoning, and controversial reasoning at that, is called for cannot bo said to be a mistake
apparent from the record. An error in law or a wrong procedure adopted in the assessment proceedings would not be a mistake within the
meaning of Section 35. Vide COMMISSIONER OF Income Tax, MADRAS Vs. O. RM. M. SM. SV. SEVUGAN., . Mistakes to discover
which complicated processes of investigation and argument are required are outside the scope of Section 35 o� the Act.
Besides Rule 11 (1) of the Merged States (Taxation Concessions) Order, 1949, runs :
The provisions of Section 18-A of the Indian Income Tax Act (regarding the advance payment of tax shall not be applied in the year ending on the
31st day of March, 1950, in respect of any income accruing or arising in a merged State unless the State Law contains a provision corresponding
thereto.
The Income Tax Officer might well have thought that that rule applied to the assessees we are now concerned with. And if he did so the present
cases would be cases in which the Income Tax Officer deliberately refrained from levying interest and what has been deliberately abstained from
cannot be treated as an error apparent from the record within the meaning of Section 35.
In order to find out how far this reasoning is sound it is necessary to examine some of the other provisions of the Income Tax Act. Section 18
provides for payment of Income Tax by deduction at the source in respect of salaries and interest on securities. Section 18-A applies to incomes
not covered by Section 18 and represents an attempt to implement a policy or method which is popularly described as ""pay as you earn.
Subject to certain restrictions Sub-section (1) of Section 18-A empowers the Income Tax Officer to require an assessee to pay Income Tax in
advance in four quarterly instalments. For this purpose his income, subject again to certain qualification is assumed to be what it was in the year
immediately preceding. The rates of Income Tax applicable would be those in fcrce in the year in which the tax is required to be paid.
Under Sub-section (2) an assessee who is required to make payments under Sub-section (1) is permitted to submit his own estimate of the tax
payable by him. In that case he need pay only the instalments that would accord with his estimate. He is also given leave to revise his estimate.
Now, if this estimate turns out to be less than 80 per cent of the tax finally determined to be payable by the assessee then Sub-section (6) requires
him to pay simple interest at the rate of six per cent per annum on the difference between the amount he has paid and the amount which it is finally
determined that he was liable to pay.
There is one qualification on this which is not of present moment. It may happen that an assessee furnishes an estimate which he Knew or had
reason to believe to be untrue. In that case Sub-section (9)(a) comes into operation and the assessee is deemed to have deliberately furnished
inaccurate particulars with the result that the provisions of Section 28 are attracted. u/s 28 the Income Tax Officer may in such cases impose a
penalty of one and a half times the amount of the tax which the assessee would have avoided if his return had been accepted as correct.
Sub-section (6) of Section 28 gives a certain measure of protection to the assessee in so far as it directs that the Income Tax Officer shall not
impose any penalty u/s 28 without the previous approval of the Inspecting Assistant Commissioner. All these provisions are in respect of persons
who may be described to be old assessees.
Sub-section (3) of Section 18-A applies to persons who may be described as new assessees, that is to say, persons who were not previously
assessed to Income Tax. Such persons are required to send to the Income Tax Officer an estimate of the tax payable by them on that part of their
income which falls-outside the scope of Section 18. And then they are required to pay that tax in appropriate instalments. Sub-section (1) indicates
what those instalments are.
It goes without saying that just like old assessees, new assessees may also sent false estimates. When that happens Clause (a) of Sub-section (9)
of Section 18-A. will apply and the new assessees too will be liable to pay a penally imposed on them in the same manner as in the case of old
assessees. Just like old assessees the new assessees may also under-estimate the tax they are liable to pay.
When that happens Sub-section (6) of Section 18-A will apply to them in the same manner as it applies to old assessees. An assessee, whether an
old assessee or a new assessee, may make no payment of the tax at all. To such cases Sub-section (8) of Section 18-A will apply. That sub-
section requires the Income Tax Officer, when he finds that no payment of the tax has been made, to add interest in the manner laid down by Sub-
section (6).
A new assessee might fail to submit an estimate of the tax payable by him. In that case Clause (b) of Sub-section (9) of Section 18-A will
apply, and that in turn would attract the appropriate provisions of Section 28 and expose the assessee to a penalty of one and a half times the tax.
As I see it one part of the fallacy in the reasoning of Mr. Srinivasan is this. His reasoning proceeds on this basis. Sub-section (3) of Section 18-
A requires a new assessee (1) to send an estimate of the tax payable by him and (2) to pay the amount of the tax in instalments. Clause (a) of Sub-
section (9) covers cases where the assessee has furnished an estimate which he knew or had reason to believe to be untrue.
Clause (b) of Sub-section (91 provides for cases whero the assessee has without reasonable cause failed to comply with the provisions of Sub-
section (3). Since part of the provisions of Sub-section (3) has been provided for in Clause (a), Clause (b) must deal with the residue which would
include the failure to pay tax. There fore, if an assessee. fails to pay advance tax the only risk he runs is that of a penalty of one and a half times the
amount of the tax being imposed on him.
That is not the correct way to read the provisions of this section. As I said before that section imposes two burdens on an assessee, (1) to
submit his estimate of the tax payable by him, and (2) to pay the tax. If he knowingly furnishes a false estimate then Clause (a) of Sub-section (9)
provides for a penalty. But there are other matters connected with the submission of the estimate oE tax.
Though the estimate may not be one which the assessee knew or had reason to believe to be untrue it may be entirely wrong owing to the careless
or haphazard manner in which it is prepared. Again, no estimate may be submitted. Sub-Clause (b) of Sub-section (9) provides for these
categories of cases in respect of assessees old or new. So far as the liability to pay interest is concerned, that is separately provided for.
Sub-section (6) provides for cases where there has been an under-estimate of the amount of tax ayable and Sub-section (8) provides for cases
where there has been no payment of tax at all. So far as what we may call offences in connection with estimates are concerned they are provided
for by Sub-section (9). The liability to pay interest owing to the omission to pay tax is separately provided for by Sub-sections (6) and (8). When
no tax has been paid the Sub-section 8 would apply; where only part of the tax has been paid the Sub-section 6 would apply.
A careful study of the provisions of Section 18-A will therefore show that the contention of Mr. Srinivasan that for failure to pay advance tax a
penalty can be levied is not correct. All that can be done in such a case is to charge interest. I hope I shall be in order if at this stage I make one
observation. In some text books and in some decisions interest chargeable under Sub-sections (6) and (8) is described as penal interest. I do not
know how that phrase got into the dialect of the Income Tax law. So far as I can see there is no element of penalty either in Sub-section (6) or in
Sub-section (8). The interest charged under those sub-sections is an impost in the same way as Income Tax is an impost.
Nor am I able to agree with the view of Mr. Srinivasan that the interest levied on an assessee falls outside the scope of the assessment. The
interest that the assessee has to pay finally depends upon and is related to the amount of the tax which it is finally assessed and determined that he
should pay. If his estimate and the final figure assessed by the Income Tax Officer are equal, or if the as-sessee''s estimate is short by only twenty
per cent, then he pays no interest. In other cases of underpayment ne is liable to pay interest - unless it can be attributed to variation in the rates of
Income Tax.
To say that because an assessee has no right of appeal from an order charging him interest, therefore, interest is not part of the assessment is
not correct. Though no appeal is provided for from an order charging interest on the assessee this can be questioned by an appeal against the
amount in which the tax is assessed, and, if that appeal succeeds and the tax charged on the assessee is reduced the interest payable by him is also
pro tan-to reduced.
In Commissioner of Income Tax, Bombay City Vs. Jagadishprasad Ramnath, the following observations appear:
This right (right of appeal) would permit the assessee to escape wholly or partially from the consequences of penal interest. Again it would be
open to the assessee to urge before the appellate authority that the income upon which the quantum of interest was charged should be reduced and
if such quantum was reduced then again the penal interest would also be reduced, because the whole object of the third proviso to Section 18-A,
Sub-section (6) is to bring about automatic revision in the rate of interest. Therefore the scheme of the Act is that penal interest must follow upon
the regular assessment; the appeal would be against the regular assessment and in the regular assessment it should be open to the assessee to take
all points which may legitimately not only reduce the taxable income or the tax to be paid or with regard to the proper head under which the
income should fall but also reduce the quantum of penal interest and the legislature having provided for this in the regular appeal itself did not think
it necessary that a separate right of appeal should be given to the assessee to appeal against the quantum of penal interest.
The argument of Mr. Srinivasan that the ""record"" of the assessment, means only those papers in which the final taxable income of the assessee
is determined and the tax due thereon computed fails to take note of the fact that the word ""assessment"" is used in different senses in different
places of the Act.
The Privy Council has explained in (1938) 6 ITR 414 (Privy Council) as follows:
One of the peculiarities of most Income Tax Acts is that the word ''assessment'' is used as meaning sometimes the computation of income,
sometimes the determination of the amount of tax payable and sometimes the whole procedure laid down in the Act for imposing liability upon the
tax payer. The Indian Income Tax Act is no exception in this respect.
The contention of Mr. Srinivasan that the error which can be rectified u/s 35 must be something obvious and must not be something to
ascertain which a prolonged investigation particularly an investigation of a controversial nature, is involved, is correct. But then, it is not confined to
mistakes which are clerical or arithmetical in character.
Under Sub-section (8) of Section 18-A, there is a statutory duty cast on the Income Tax Officer to add interest where no advance payment of
tax has been made. The Income Tax Officer has no discretion in the matter. He is bound to charge interest. And I have no difficulty in holding that
when he has omitted to do so that omission is a mistake apparent from the record. 1 find that a similar view was taken in Meka Venkatappaiah Vs.
Additional Income Tax Officer, .
On the final argument of Mr. Srinivasan that the Income Tax Officer may have thought that Rule 11 of the Merged States (Taxation
Concessions) Order, 1949 applied to the case, two observations may be made. One is that it is unlikely he made such a mistake and the other is
that it did make such a mistake that would be an error apparent from the record.
All the contentions taken before me fail. These writ petitions are therefore dismissed with costs. Advocate''s fee Rs. 100 in each case.