The Assessing Officer's opinion for special audit under Section 142 (2a) must be based on objective consideration, and the previous approval of the high ranking authority must reflect the application of mind to the facts of the case.

( 1 ) TWO orders, both dated 27th August, 2001, passed by the deputy Commissioner of Income-Tax Circle 17 (1), New Delhi, under Section 142 (2a) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (for short the Act) ordering special audit of the accounts of the petitioners are under challenge in these two writ petitions.

( 2 ) SINCE the orders are in identical terms, passed in the cases of two group concerns, for the sake of convenience, both the petitions are being disposed of by this common judgment. However, we shall treat the facts of CWP No. 7883/01 as illustrative.

( 3 ) THE petitioner, a proprietary concern, is the sole selling agent for and on behalf of an organising agent authorised by the State Government to conduct the lottery business. It sells lottery tickets on consignment basis to the stockists in different States of India. Assessments for the assessment years 1995-96 to 1998-99 were completed under Section 143 (3) of the Act. From January, 1997 to December, 1999, residential and business premises of the proprietor of the petitioner were subjected to search and seizure proceedings on four different occasions and as a consequence thereof, assessments for different block periods were completed on different dates. According to the petitioner no addition on account of business activities/transaction was made in any of the earlier block assessments and in fact the alleged undisclosed income assessed vide orders dated 26 February, 1999 and 29 september, 2000 were only on account of alleged suppression of correct sale consideration of agricultural lands, investments in jewellery and travelling expenses incurred on foreign visits. In other words, no trading addition was made.

( 4 ) THE fourth search and seizure operation was carried out on 20 August, 1999. Consequently, a notice under Section 158bc, requiring the petitioner to file the return for the block period 1 April, 1989 to 20 August, 1999 was issued on 17 november, 2000. Pursuant thereto a return declaring nil undisclosed income was filed. The first notice under Section 143 (2) was issued on 25 January, 2001. Various queries were raised by the Assessing Officer, which included a draw-wise and vendor-wise details of prize winning tickets. The petitioner was also required to produce the books of accounts. On 27 August, 2001 the petitioner was served with the impugned order, along with the approval of the Commissioner of Income-tax, delhi-VI, respondent No. 1 herein, requiring him to have the books of accounts for the financial year comprising the block period 1 April, 1989 to 20 August, 1999 audited by a special auditor The order reads as follows:

"auditing of books of account should be with the view to draw the true and correct profit and loss account and to ascertain the correct profit for each of its financial years comprised in the block period from 1. 4. 89 to 20. 8. 99. "

( 5 ) IT is alleged that the said order was made just four days before the expiry of limitation for completion of assessment for the said block period under Section 158be of the Act i. e. 31 August, 2001. The petitioner, while protesting against the said order, requested the Assessing Officer to furnish the basis for ordering the special audit. However, his request having been turned down by the Assessing Officer vide letter dated 25 October, 2001, the petitioner filed a writ petition challenging the order dated 25 October, 2001 but the same was withdrawn on the plea that certain important grounds and prayers had not been incorporated in the petition. Hence the present petition.

( 6 ) THE impugned order is challenged on various grounds namely: (i) as per the scheme of Section 142 (2a) the objective analysis of the existence of pre-conditions and necessity of special audit should be evident not only from the order made by the Assessing Officer but also from the approval granted by the Commissioner. , but in the instant case no such analysis of pre-conditions of the said section is visible either from the im