HON’BLE SUPREME COURT · SOURCE-REVIEWED NOTE
Income-tax Officer, Bangalore v. K. N. Guruswamy
Civil Appeals Nos. 165–168 of 1956
[1959] 1 SCR 785 ·
Indian Income-tax Act, 1922: section 34 · Finance Act, 1950: section 13(1) · Mysore Act XXXI of 1948: sections 3, 5(b), 6 · Mysore Act LVII of 1948: sections 3, 4 and Schedule A
Sources & disclosures includedDownload original judgment / order
5-judge bench · S. R. Das C.J. · T. L. Venkatarama Aiyar · S. K. Das · A. K. Sarkar · Vivian Bose
Assessment years: 1945-46, 1946-47, 1947-48, 1948-49
01 · Facts of the case
An excise contractor in Bangalore’s retroceded area challenged 1954 reopening notices and reassessments for four earlier years. The Mysore High Court held that the earlier reassessment jurisdiction had not survived the legislative changes.
Source: Primary report: SCR 788–795
02 · Discussion by the Hon’ble Court
Following Lakshmana Shenoy on Finance Act savings and the financial agreement, the Court examined the special retrocession enactments. Their preservation of assessment proceedings included escaped and under-assessed income. The old Indian Income-tax Act’s section 34 survived in its entirety, including its limitation period; Mysore’s different period did not replace it.
Source: Primary report: SCR 795–798
03 · Judicial decision
The Income-tax Officer had jurisdiction under the saved Indian provision as it stood in the retroceded area before 1 July 1948.
Source: Primary report: SCR 797–798
04 · Outcome / in whose favour
Revenue appeals allowed; High Court orders set aside and the assessee’s writ petitions dismissed, with costs in both courts.
Source: Primary report: SCR 798
05 · AKHB REVIEW POINT
Trace each repeal and saving provision before identifying the applicable reassessment law and time limit. A change of territorial tax law did not itself extinguish the saved procedure.
Source: Primary report: SCR 797–798
Source & verification
Download original judgment / order · Open cited source rendition
Complete 14-page Supreme Court Reports scan. Any adjoining report fragments remain in the unchanged original and are excluded from this analysis.
Statutory scope
Historical legislation expressly identified in this note. This is not a decision under the Income-tax Act, 1961 or the Income-tax Act, 2025. Verify enacted wording, commencement, transition and subsequent judicial treatment independently before modern reliance.
Later treatment
Source checked 2026-10-23. Subsequent treatment and present-law applicability have not been comprehensively checked.
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This AKHB research note uses AI assistance and a preserved full-primary review, with refreshed exact original-byte verification. Independent human review is not represented.
General legal and tax research only; not legal or tax advice. Verify the complete judgment, applicable statutory version and subsequent treatment before reliance. AKHB REVIEW POINT is editorial analysis, not the Court’s holding.