Judgment:
1. The AO informed the Addl. CIT, Rewari Range, Rewari that against summons under Section 131 of the IT Act requiring the assessee to be personally present or to file photo copy of a conveyance deed/sale deed, neither any adjournment was sought nor any compliance was made, on three different dates. Subsequently, penalties amounting to Rs. 30,000, for the alleged three defaults, were imposed. The learned CIT(A) confirmed the penalties. The assesses is in further appeal before us.
2. The contention of the assessee in the statement of fact has been that the assessee is a State Government Officer. His office is run in the name of Sub-Registrar, Rewari, through its registration clerk. The office has been created under the Indian Registration Act and the Punjab Land Registration Manual. All the Court summons are issued in the name of registration clerk. The summons in question were served in the office. The registration clerk was directed to comply with them. He was not aware- of the procedure. He supplied the relevant information with the signature of the Sub-Registrar to the ITO, Rewari. The registration clerk visited the office of the ITO on all three days.
However, his attendance was not marked. The information, as supplied, was accepted by the AO without any objection. Thus, the assessee was under the bona fide impression that due compliance had been made.
3. Undisputedly, as also observed by the learned CIT(A), the requirement for the assessee was either to attend in person or to produce photo copies of the. requisite documents. The dispute is as to whether having - supplied attested copies instead of photo copies as required by the AO, the assessee has committed any default so as to attract penalty under Section 272A(1)(c).
4. As per Section 131 of the IT Act, the AO shall, for the purpose of this Act, have the same powers as are vested in a Court under the CPC, when trying a suit in respect of, inter alia, compelling the production of documents. The Court of Civil Procedure is a general Court governing procedure to be adopted by the Civil Court. Wherever copies of documents are to be produced in a civil proceedings, certified copies of the documents are the ones required to be filed and not merely photo copies. This is because certified copies have clearly more evidentiary value than photo copies. Moreover, undeniably, there is no provision under the Punjab Land Registration Manual, i.e., the statute governing the assessee, to supply photo copies of title deeds. The assessee submitted certified copies before the AO. The penalty in question has been levied merely because instead of the photo copies, as the assessee was required by the AO to do, certified copies were supplied. In effect, the assessee did supply the requisite copies available from the record. As discussed above, certified copies definitely carry more evidentiary value than photo copies. Therefore, the assessee cannot be said to have committed any default. Otherwise too, for the same default, the penalty has been levied thrice over. This is unsustainable.
5. Be that as it may, in view of the above discussion, we do not find any default to have been committed by the assessee, so as to attract the levy of penalty in question. These penalties are hereby cancelled.