- (1.) The appellant No. 1 is a registered firm and appellants 2 and 3 are the only two partners of that firm. They are assessees under the Income-tax Act. Their assessments have been made for a number of years in Nellore District in the usual course. On January 23, 1973, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (briefly the Central Board) sent a notice to the appellants under Section 127 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (briefly the Act) proposing to transfer their case files "for facility of investigation" from the respective Income-tax Officer at Nellore to the Income-tax Officer, B Ward, Special Circle II, Hyderabad. By this notice they were also asked to submit in writing if they had any objection to the propose transfer within 15 days of receipt of the notice. The appellants made their representation objecting to the transfer and on July 26, 1973, the Central Board passed the impugned order transferring the cases from Nellore to Hyderabad.
(2.) There is no provision of appeal or revision under the Act against such orders of transfer. The appellants, therefore, preferred an application under Article 226 of the Constitution before the High Court of Andhra Pradesh questioning the validity of the order chiefly on the ground of violation of the principles of natural justice inasmuch as no reasons were given nor communicated in the said order. The learned single Judge after having called for the relevant file found that certain reasons were recorded by the Central Board prior to the passing of the impugned order and held that mere failure to communicate the reasons to the appellants was not fatal to the order. The writ petition was, therefore, dismissed.
(3.) The appellants' Letters Patent Appeal before the Division Bench of the High Court also met with the same fate. Hence this appeal by special leave.;