A.K.SIKRI,J. - (1.) Delay condoned in Special Leave Petition (C) No.....CC 9101 and 10193 of 2014.
(2.) Leave granted.
(3.) All these appeals (except Civil Appeal No. 1245 of 2012 and Civil Appeals arising out of SLP (C) No....CC Nos. 9101 and 10193 of 2014 and SLP (C) No. 14812 of 2014, which are filed by the Revenue) are preferred by the assessees. The respondent in these appeals is the Joint Commissioner of Income Tax (Assessment), Special Range, Mysore, who would be referred to as the 'Revenue' hereinafter. It may also be mentioned that these appeals arise out of a common judgment rendered by the High Court of Karnataka on December 23, 2010 in the appeals filed under Section 260-A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (for short, the 'Act') challenging certain aspects of assessments pertaining to the Assessment Year 1995-1996. In fact, as would be noticed hereinafter, all these assessees were partners of a partnership firm known as 'M/s. Mangalore Ganesh Beedi Works', which was sold to three other partners, as a going concern, but after the dissolution of the partnership firm. Certain considerations received as a result thereof were treated as capital gains on which income tax was charged by the Assessing Officer. The case of the assessees was that it was a capital receipt in their hands, not exigible to income tax. The exact nature of the receipt, treated as capital gain by the Assessing Officer, shall be taken note of subsequently at the appropriate stage. Suffice it to state that the assessees successive appeals to Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) and then to the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) and thereafter to the High Court have failed, thereby sustaining the order of the Assessing Officer. With this brief background of the litigation, we advert to the events that have taken place in some detail.;