S. Grover, Judicial Member - (1.) THESE four second appeals are directed against the common order dated 21-3-1985 passed by the Appellate Asstt. Commissioner of Income-tax, H-Range, New Delhi, by which she upheld the ex parte assessments Under section. 144 in respect of assessment years 1976-77, 1977-78, 1978-79 and 1979-80 respectively. The primary contention in the first three grounds for all the years is two-fold. First, that there was no justification for passing ex parte order on 21-3-85 by the AAC because on that day Shri R.K. Mehra, Chartered Accountant did appear and requested for adjournment which was in fact promised and second that confirmation of assessments at Rs. 7,0000, Rs. 75,000 for the first two years respectively and Rs. 80,000 for each of the last two years was not proper. The other grounds are consequential in nature.
(2.) The AAC's short order we like to notice as under :- These appeals are against the orders of the ITO passed Under Section 144 of the IT Act for the above asst. years. 2. In these cases several opportunities were provided to the appellant for the representation of the case but every time request for adjournment was made which was duly granted. On the date of hearing, i.e., 21-3-85 Shri R.K. Mehra, CA appeared and requested for adjournment of the case. Since several opportunities were given to the appellant in these cases high demands were involved the request of the representative of the appellant was rejected intimating him clearly that these are high demands appeals and these have to be decided before 31st March 1985. Since Shri R.K. Mehra preferred not to represent the case, I refuse to interfere with the decision of the ITO. These four appeals are dismissed. Shri R.K. Mehra who appeared before us, made a statement and reiterated before us that there could be no reason or logic for not representing the case on 21-3-85 if he had the slightest apprehension that his request for adjournment was not being granted. The submission was that there was some sort of confusion. Alternatively, he submitted that considering the best pattern of assessments the figure of assessments necessarily should have been revised when specific ground was taken in that regard before the first appellate authority. For the revenue, Shri J.S. Rao very strongly contended that the case having a long history of defaults, the AAC's order could not be assailed or considered wrong both with regard to passing ex parte order and confirming estimates of income.
(3.) WE have reproduced the AAC's order and would also like to give the figure of returned and assessed incomes as mentioned in the assessment order for 1976-77, with a purpose to show that even if there were default both at the ITO and the AAC stage, still the assessments could not be said to be related to past records because nothing is stated in relation to business activities in the years under appeal by the lower authorities : JUDGEMENT_2139_TLIT0_19870.htm On the other hand, the ITO after noticing the above figures resorted to higher estimates by stating that considering the history of the case the assessee apparently thought it advantageous to quote ex parte assessments, which attitude is not considered correct.;