DHANRAJ MUNDRA vs COMMISSIONER OF Income Tax.

B. R. ARORA, J. :

The petitioner by these three applications moved under s. 256(2) of the IT Act has prayed that the Tribunal, Jaipur Bench, Jaipur, may be directed to refer five questions of law mentioned in the applications for the opinion of this Court.

It will not be out of question to refer here that in the applications moved before the Tribunal, Jaipur Bench, Jaipur, under s. 256(1) of the Act, the common question proposed by the assessee to be referred for the opinion of the High Court was as under :

"Under the facts and circumstances of the case, whether the Tribunal was right in holding that the interest income as well as the amount recovered from the debtors are not reinvested in further or fresh advancement and thereby confirming the addition of fresh investment without giving credit of the amount of the interest income and amount recovered from the debtors".

The Department proposed the following question of law for the opinion of this Court :

"Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was legally justified in directing the AO that no compound interest shall be charged".

The questions, which were not raised before the Tribunal either at the time of arguments or in the reference applications, and are raised for the first time before this Court, reference on those questions cannot be called as the view of the Tribunal on that point is not available.

It is contended by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the important and material evidence was ignored by the Tribunal and the judgment of the Tribunal is based on wrong presumption, the evidence has been misread by the Tribunal and the findings arrived at by the Tribunal are perverse, which are not supported by any legal evidence and since the findings recorded by the Tribunal are perverse and are based on misreading of the evidence and are not supported by legal evidence, they give rise to the question of law. In support of his contention, learned counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance over five judgments. It is not necessary to refer all these cases in this judgment because there is no dispute so far as the proposition of law enunciated in these judgments is concerned. The proposition that has been laid down by the Supreme Court in these judgments is that the improper rejection of the material and relevant evidence; that if the conclusion arrived at by the Tribunal is perverse and is not supported by any evidence and ignoring the material evidence and if the findings are based on wrong presumption then that may give rise to a question of law, on which a reference can be called. But in the present case, after going through the judgment passed by the Tribunal (though not on record but was shown to us by the learned counsel for the petitioner), we are of the opinion that it is not a case in which the Tribunal has either ignored the important or material evidence or it has based its findings on wrong presumption of the facts. It is, also, not a case of misreading the evidence. The findings arrived at by the Tribunal are purely findings of fact which are supported by the legal evidence.

While rejecting the applications under s. 256(1) of the Act, the learned Members of the Tribunal observed that the findings of the Tribunal are based on proper appreciation of the evidence on record and as the conclusion is based on the finding on record, no referable question of law, as proposed by the assessee, arises. The findings arrived at by the Tribunal in its judgment dt. 31st May, 1996 are purely findings of fact and based on the relevant consideration of the facts and circumstances of the case. In arriving at these findings, the Tribunal has neither misread the evidence nor ignored any evidence. Since the findings arrived at by the Tribunal are purely findings of fact, they do not give rise to any question of law. The learned Members of the Tribunal were, therefore, justified in dismissing the applications under s. 256(1) of the IT Act and rightly refused to refer the proposed question for adjudication and opinion of this Court as according to the Tribunal, the conclusions arrived at by it are findings of fact and no referable question of law, as proposed by the assessee, arises.

In this view of the matter, we do not find any infirmity in the judgment passed by the Tribunal. Since no referable question of law arises, the applications under s. 256(2) of the IT Act, filed by the petitioner, are, therefore, dismissed.