From our Legal Corner - Monday's casesLegal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.

By Vijay Kumar

Income Tax

No re-assessment proceedings can be initiated so long as assessment proceedings pending on basis of return already filed are not terminated : Madras HC

It is settled law that unless the return of income already filed is disposed of, notice for reassessment under section 148 cannot be issued, i.e., no reassessment proceedings can be initiated so long as assessment proceedings pending on the basis of the return already filed are not terminated.

Service Tax

Service Tax - AC cannot rectify an order after Commissioner (A) has dismissed appeal - Commissioner (A) also cannot rectify that order as his earlier order was not challenged : CESTAT

THE Assistant Commissioner imposed penalty for delayed payment of Service Tax. The Commissioner (Appeals) dismissed the appeal for non-compliance of pre deposit. The assessee filed a rectification application with the Adjudicating authority claiming that the delay was not 12486 days as held by the adjudicating authority, but 1418 days and if this was considered, the penalty would be reduced to Rs. 1,41,800/- instead of Rs. 11,85,783/-. The additional Commissioner in a letter rejected the rectification and said that the No. of days calculated by him was correct.

Against this letter, the assessee appealed to the Commissioner (Appeals), who held that both the Adjudicating authority and the Assessee were wrong in calculating the number of days. She calculated the days as 6671 and the penalty as Rs. 6,67,111/-

Customs

Do High Courts have power to condone delay in filing application under Sec 130-A of Customs Act? Yes, says Bombay HC

IN terms of Section 130A of the Customs Act,

the Commissioner of Customs or the other party may, within one hundred and eighty days of the date upon which he is served with notice of an order under section 129B passed on or before the 1st day of July, 2003 (not being an order relating, among other things, to the determination of any question having a relation to the rate of duty of customs or to the value of goods for purposes of assessment), by application in the prescribed form, accompanied, where the application is made by the other party, by a fee of two hundred rupees, apply to the High Court to direct the Appellate Tribunal to refer to the High Court any question of law arising from such order of the Tribunal.

If the application under the above section is filed beyond 180 days of receiving the order by the Commissioner, can the High Court condone the delay in absence of express provisions in the said section to this effect?

See our columns Monday for the judgements