- (1.) - Leave granted in SLP (C) Nos. 3920-23/1977.
(2.) All these appeals raise a common question and can be disposed of by a common order. In all these cases the respondents assessees filed either applications for registration under Section 184 of the Income-tax Act or a declaration for continuance of registration under the same section. Section 184(4) requires the application to be made before the end of the previous year for the assessment year in respect of which registration is sought but the proviso to the subsection empowers an Income-tax Officer to entertain the application if he is satisfied that the firm was prevented by sufficient cause from making an application before the end of the previous year. Likewise, sub-section (7) of Section 184 requires that the declaration should be made within the time allowed therefor. But the sub-section also permits the Income-tax Officer, if he is satisfied that the firm was prevented by sufficient cause from furnishing the declaration within the time allowed, to allow the firm to furnish the declaration at any time before the assessment is made. In the present cases, however, the Income-tax Officer was not satisfied that there was sufficient cause which prevented the assessees from filing their applications or declarations within the time allowed. He, therefore, completed the assessments of the respondents taking their status as unregistered firm.
(3.) The assessees preferred appeals to the Appellate Assistant Commissioner. The short question before us is whether these applications were maintainable. The Department's case is that these appeals are not maintainable inasmuch as section 246, which deals with the subject-matter of the appeals before the Appellate Assistant Commissioner, does not provide for an appeal from an order under Section 184(4) or under Section 184(7). This view has been accepted in a number of judicial decisions on which Sh. Ahuja relies before us.;