- (1.) THE petitioner, Messrs. V. K. Sood Engineers and Contractors Pvt. Ltd. , has approached this court in a peculiar set of circumstances for the relief claimed under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India. The broad facts on which we propose to grant the relief are not in dispute and only, in brief, reference thereto is considered necessary. The petitioner is a contractor. In some contracts containing arbitration clauses disputes arose which ultimately ended with awards given by the arbitrator/arbitrators. Such awards were made a rule of the court. Since the awards were against the State of Punjab, eight first appeals were filed in the High Court which stood dismissed for default. Applications for restoration of the appeals were dismissed. Hence, the letters patent appeals, eight in number. Those eight appeals which are stated to be pending were filed against the order refusing to restore the appeals as well as the order dismissing the appeals in default. Since the petitioner recovered the amount of the awards which were made a rule of the court, the question arose before the income-tax authorities to include the amount of the awards in the taxable turnover of the assessee. It was so included. Appeals against the orders of the Income-tax Officer are stated to be pending. At this stage, it may be observed that though the petitioner had withdrawn the amount of the awards which were made a rule of the court, in the letters patent appeals, a direction was given to the petitioner to deposit the amount so withdrawn. Certain restraints were also imposed on the petitioner with respect to the operation of the accounts or encumbering the property.
(2.) SINCE the petitioner was unable to pay the tax, he has approached this court for quashing the orders (annexures P-18 to P-21 and P-23 ). Vide order dated December 10, 1992 (annexure P-18), the Commissioner of Income-tax allowed permission to provisionally attach the cash received by the assessee on encashing the fixed deposit receipts. Order dated December 18, 1992 (annexures P-19 and P-20), are the directions of the Deputy Commissioner of Income-tax to the Income-tax Officer under Section 144a of the Income-tax Act for framing the assessment in the case of the petitioner. Annexure P-21 is the order dated December 23, 1992, passed by the Income-tax Officer framing the assessment against the petitioner as stated above. Annexure P-23 is the notice dated December 23, 1992, issued by the Commissioner of Income-tax, Investigation Circle II, Chandigarh, for imposing penalty.
(3.) ON notice of motion having been issued, reply has been filed on behalf of the respondents, inter alia, raising preliminary objections to the maintainability of the writ petition as an appeal against the order of assessment passed by Hit Income-tax Officer is already pending. The challenge to the order of the Deputy Commissioner of Income-tax giving directions under Section 144a of the Act is met by saying that it merged in the order of the Income-tax Officer and, thus, independently, no challenge could be made to such an order of the Deputy Commissioner of Income-tax. In such like matters, even otherwise, resort could not be had to the writ jurisdiction. Attachment order stands withdrawn. Annexure P-23 was merely a notice and the final order is yet to be passed. The petitioner has not approached the court with clean hands and thus is not entitled to a discretionary relief.;