A finding of fact is open to attack under Section 66 as erroneous in law when there is no evidence to support it or if it is perverse or has been reached without due consideration of the several matters relevant for such a determination.

JUDGMENT :

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by

S.K. Das, J.

1. This is an appeal by special leave. The appellant is the widow of one Kanji Jadhavji. Kanji Jadhavji had extensive businesses such as stevedoring, coal hauling, freight brokerage, clearing and forwarding of goods, loading and unloading of steamers, chartering of steamers etc. These businesses the widow inherited on the death of her husband. For Assessment Year 1947-48, the relevant accounting year being the calendar year 1946, the appellant was assessed en a total income of Rs 3,69,371, which was subsequently reduced to Rs 2,99,471 by the Appellate Assistant Commissioner. While assessing the appellant, the Income Tax Officer concerned added a sum of Rs 1,38,000 being the amount, of certain high denomination notes encashed by the appellant, as income from undisclosed sources. Being aggrieved by this addition, the appellant appealed to the Appellate Assistant Commissioner. The Appellate Assistant. Commissioner asked the Income Tax Officer to prepare from the records in the possession of the department statements of income returned and income assessed in the hands of the appellant for the years 1931 to 1945. These statements were duly prepared. The Income Tax Officer also prepared statements of the capital accounts in the different books of the appellant and the amounts withdrawn by her therefrom, for the Assessment Years 1936-37 to 1946-47. No books of account were, however, available the year 1944-45 and for the first four months of 1945-46, some of these books, it was stated, were destroyed as a result an explosion which took place in the Bombay docks on April 14, 1944. By the time the appeal was heard the appellate Assistant Commissioner who had called for the aforesaid statements was transferred. His successor-in-office who dealt with the appeal held that the Income Tax Officer was justified in adding Rs 1,38,000 as income from undisclosed sources. The appeal was accordingly dismissed. Then, there was an appeal to the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Bombay. By its order dated May, 1959, the Appellate Tribunal held that there was 'no positive and tangible proof to correlate the encashment of high denomination notes worth Rs 2,38,000 with any previous savings or withdrawals of the appellant.' It therefore, dismissed the appeal. It may be stated here that the appellant had encashed 246 high denomination currency notes of the total value of Rs 2,46,000 at the time when the High Denomination Notes (Demonetisation) Ordinance was promulgated in January 1946. At that time the appellant made a declaration to the effect that the sources from which she had come into possession of the high denomination notes were (1) movable and immovable properties including cash left by her husband (2) the profits which she had made from the business of her husband inherited by her (3) rents and income from her landed properties (4) the moneys she had withdrawn from the said businesses from time to time, and (5) three fixed deposits which the appellant had in three banks, those deposits having been withdrawn in 1942 when there was a panic arising out of the Second World War. Out of the aforesaid 246 notes the Income Tax Officer held that eight notes formed part of day-to-day cash balance of the businesses of the appellant. As regards the remaining 238 notes, Income Tax Officer held that a sum of Rs 1,00,000 could at most be treated as representing the savings of the appellant from all sources; therefore, he held that the remaining sum of Rs 1,38,000 was the appellant's income from undisclosed sources.

2. The appellant then moved the Tribunal for referring certain questions of law which according to her arose out of the Tribunal's order dated May 6, 1959 to the High Court under Section 66(1) of the Income Tax Act, 1922. In her application the appellant framed seven such questions. In their true scope and effect the questions really were three in number: (1) whether there was any evidence