FALSHAW, J. - (1.) THESE are two petitions under S. 66(3) of the IT Act filed by M/s T. N. Swami and Company against the CIT, Delhi. It seems that appeals were filed by the petitioner against the orders of the AAC relating to the asst. yrs. 1942 -43 and 1943 - 44 before the Delhi Bench of the Tribunal. The two appeals appeared to the Tribunal to be barred by time, but the assessee was given an opportunity to furnish facts or explanations which might have led the Tribunal to treat the appeals as filed within time, and when he did not do so, the appeals were dismissed in a short consolidated order dated the 3rd of July, 1950. This order was communicated to the assessee by means of a certified copy which reached him on the 24th of July, 1950. The assessee then sought to have certain questions of law said to arise out of the order of the Tribunal referred to the High Court under S. 66 of the IT Act and he, therefore, filed two applications under S. 66(1) before the Tribunal. These applications, however, were not filed until the 29th of Sept., 1950. The Tribunal did not consider that they had been filed within time and therefore dismissed them as time barred. The present applications have accordingly been filed in this Court under S. 66(3) which specifically deals with the dismissal by the Tribunal of applications under S. 66(1) as barred by time.
(2.) THE provisions of the Act regarding limitation for applications under S. 66(1) are contained in that sub -section and S. 67A. The relevant words of S. 66(1) are : - "within sixty days of the date upon which he is served with notice of an order under sub -s. (4) of s. 33, the assessee or the CIT may, " and S. 67A reads : - "In computing the period of limitation prescribed for an appeal under this Act or for an application under S. 66, the day on which the order complained of was made, and the time requisite for obtaining a copy of such order, shall be excluded." It is clear that excluding the day on which the appellate order of the Tribunal was delivered, the 3rd July, 1950, the period of sixty days mentioned in S. 66(1) expired on the 22nd of Sept., 1950, and the applications under S. 66(1) which were filed on the 29th of September were therefore filed seven days after the prescribed period. The assessee, however, sought to extend the period of limitation by reason of the fact that he had applied on the 20th of September for certified copies of the Tribunal's order and these copies were actually supplied on the 28th of September. It was there -fore contended that the applications were filed within time in view of the provisions of S. 67A which exclude the time requisite for obtaining a copy of the relevant order from the period of limitation for an application under S. 66. This contention, however, was rejected on its being pointed out on behalf of the CIT that no time was required in this case for obtaining any certified copies of the appellate order of the Tribunal since the notice of the order of the Tribunal mentioned in S. 66(1) was actually conveyed to the assessee by means of a certified copy.
(3.) IT is conceded by the counsel for both parties that there is no reported decision directly in point. It is not disputed that no certified copy of the appellate order of the Tribunal needs to be filed along with an application under S. 66(1), but it is contended on behalf of the petitioner that this fact makes no difference to his right to exclude from the period of limitation the time taken in obtaining a certified copy, reliance being placed on the Full Bench decision of the Lahore High Court reported as Punjab Co -operative Bank Ltd. vs. Official Liquidators, Punjab Cotton Press Co. Ltd. (1941) ILR 22 Lah 191. In that case a Letters Patent appeal was filed against the order of a learned single Judge dealing with company matters, and it was held that although no copy of the order appealed against was required to be filed along with the appeal, the appellant was nevertheless entitled to the benefit of S. 12(2) of the Limitation Act. The reasoning underlying this decision is obvious, namely, that even if a litigant is not required to supply a certified copy of the order against which an appeal is to be filed, he is entitled to obtain a copy of the order for study with a view to deciding whether or not to file an appeal. It is clear, however, that that case differs from the present case on a point which goes to the root of the matter, namely, that in the present case the appellate order of the Tribunal was communicated to the petitioner by means of a certified copy, and therefore it is not open to him on any ground to say that he required any further certified copies of the order. The case might have been different if he had been required to file a certified copy of the consolidated order along with each of his separate applications. I, therefore, consider that the matter was quite correctly decided by the Tribunal and would dismiss the present applications with costs which I would assess at Rs. 100 for the two applications taken together.;