- (1.) This appeal has been preferred by the revenue under Section 27-A of the Wealth Tax Act, 1957 (for short, "the Act") against the order of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Chandigarh dated 26.9.2007 in W.T.A.No.27/Chd/2006 for the assessment year 2003-04 claiming following substantial question of law:- "1. Whether on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the ITAT was justified in law in confirming the order of the CIT(A) ignoring the fact that the straight line method adopted by the A.O. for measuring the distance of 3 km from the Municipal limits, was scientific and as per the spirit of notification dated 09.11.1993 read with the provisions of section 11 of General Clauses Act, 1897 2. Whether on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the ITAT was justified in law in not following its own decision and thus the rule of consistency in giving contrary decisions in two cases on identical issue -
(2.) During the assessment, the assessee objected to inclusion of the land in dispute in the definition of assets under Section 2(ea) of the Act on the ground that the land was agricultural land beyond the prescribed distance from the municipal limits. The Assessing Officer rejected the said objection but the CWT(A) sustained the same, which has been affirmed by the Tribunal. The CWT(A) observed:- "4.3. ........... The issue involved has already been decided by my Ld. predecessor vide his appellate order for the A.Y. 2003-04 and by me vide my orders of date for the A.Yrs. 1998-99 to 2001-02 in the case of Sh. Kulbir Singh (HUF). The facts and circumstances relating to this issue being quite identical in both the cases and in all the years, following our earlier orders, it is held that the land measuring 66 kanals 2 Marlas is situated beyond the notified distance of 3 Kms from municipal limit and as such it is not asset chargeable to wealth tax with in the meaning of clause (ea) of section 2 of the wealth tax....."
(3.) The above finding has been affirmed by the Tribunal.;