The Supreme Court has held that a fresh claim before the Revisional authority cannot be filed by the assessee without filing a revised return in accordance with law.

A bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar dismissed an assessee's plea against the Orissa High Court's decision to uphold the income tax authority's decision to decline the fresh claim of the assessee without filing a revised return within a stipulated time period.

Briefly put, for the assessment year 2006–07, the appellant filed its return declaring a loss of ₹1.94 crore. During the assessment proceedings, it sought to revise its return, but the Assessing Officer did not take the request into account while passing the assessment order.

The Assessing Officer raised a tax demand of approximately ₹7.58 crore and charged interest of ₹2.50 crore under Section 234B of the Income Tax Act, taking the total demand to approximately ₹10.08 crore.

The appellant approached the Commissioner of Income Tax under Section 264 of the Income Tax Act, filing a fresh claim because of his failure to include the deductions in the previous claim. The revision was dismissed on the ground that a fresh claim could not be made without filing a revised return. Its subsequent appeal before the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) was also dismissed as not maintainable because the appellant had already invoked the revisional remedy.

Following this, a writ petition was filed by the assessee, which was also dismissed, prompting the assessee to move to the Supreme Court.

Before the Supreme Court, the appellant relied on Supreme Court judgments of Wipro Finance Ltd. v. Commissioner of Income Tax, Dwarka Nath v. Income Tax Officer and Sirpur Paper Mills Ltd. v. Commissioner of Wealth Tax to contend that a fresh claim could be raised before the revisional authority.

The Revenue relied on the Court's decision in Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax v. Om Siddhakala Associates, which held that an assessee cannot use Section 264 to make a claim that should have been raised through a revised return within the prescribed period.

Dismissing the appeal, the Supreme Court refused to interfere with the impugned findings, holding that a fresh claim cannot be entertained in a revision without filing a revised return.

“…when the revised return was not submitted within time, and the assessee having not claimed the deductions by filing a revised return, the same cannot be availed by invoking revisional jurisdiction.”, the Court observed, relying on M/s Om Siddhakala Associates.

The Court distinguished the judgments cited by the assessee, stating that “in none of the matters the issue concerning effect of non-filing of revised return within time and in accordance with law was not an issue.”

The Court said that if the assessee's argument is accepted, then “there would be no end to raising any fresh claim basing a new fact which was not before the Assessing Officer.”

“Allowing this, would make the assessment procedure and the assessment order endless, and any party can raise fresh claim before the Revisional Authority even though there are no foundational facts available before the Assessing Authority to consider such claim.”, the Court added.

As a result, the appeal was dismissed.

Appearance:

For Appellant(s) Mr. Siddhartha Chowdhury, AOR Mr. S K Bagaria, Sr. Adv. Mr. Snehasish Mukherjee, Adv. Mr. Shaffi Mather, Adv. Mr. Tamal Sanyal, Adv.

For Respondent(s) Mr. N Venkataraman, A.S.G. Mr. Sudarshan Lamba, AOR Mr. V Chandrashekhara Bharathi, Adv. Mr. Gaurav Arya, Adv. Mr. Sushant Singh, Adv. Mr. Alok Kumar, Adv. Mr. Nakul Madhan, Adv.