MEENAKSHI MILLS LIMITED MADURAI Vs. COMMISSIONER OF INOOME TAX MADRAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Judgment of the court was delivered by

(2.) THESE appeals arise out of orders of assessment made on the appellant by the Appellate tribunal, Madras bench, for the years of account 1941-42, 1942-43 and 1943-44. The appellant applied under section 66(1) of the Indian Income-tax Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) to refer to the High court certain questions which according to it arose out of the orders; but the tribunal rejected the applications. The appellant then moved the High court under section 66(2) of the Act for an order requiring the tribunal to refer those questions to the court, but the learned Judges held that the questions on which reference was sought by the appellant were pure questions of fact, and dismissed the applications. The matter now comes before us by way of special appeal.

(3.) ON these facts, the tribunal came to the conclusion that the contentions of the Department had been fully established, namely, that the intermediaries were dummies brought into existence by the appellant for concealing its profits, that the sales standing in their names were sham and fictitious, and that the, profits ostensibly earned by them on those transactions were, in fact, earned by the appellant, and should be added ,to the amounts shown as profits in its accounts. The point for decision is whether there arises out of the order of the tribunal any question which can be the subject of reference under section 66(1) of the Act. Under that section, it is only a question of law that can be referred for decision of the court, 'and it is impossible to argue that the conclusion of the tribunal is anything but one of fact. It has been held on the corresponding provisions in the English Income-tax statutes that a finding on a question of fact is open to attack as erroneous in law only if it is not supported by any evidence, or if it is unreasonable and perverse, but that where there is evidence to consider, I the decision of the tribunal is final even though the court might not, on the materials, have come to the same conclusion if it had the power to substitute its own judgment. In Great Western Railway Co. v. Bater, Lord Atkinson observed: 'Their (Commissioners') determination of questions of pure fact are not to be disturbed, any more than are the findings of a jury, unless it should appear that there was no evidence before them upon which they, as reasonable men, could come to the conclusion to which they have come: and this even though the court of Review would on the evidence have come to a conclusion entirely different from theirs'.