The petitioner's failure to plead and prove sufficient cause for delayed filing of returns precluded any obligation on the Income-tax Officer to call for a cause against the levy of interest.

1. The petitioner before me is a firm of contractors carrying on business as such in Angamaly. For the assessment years 1970-71 and 1971-72 the petitioner had been assessed to Income-tax as per the orders evidenced by Exts. P-2 and P-3 passed by the Income-tax Officer, A Ward, Ernakulam. In making those assessments the net profit derived by the petitioner from the contract relating to the construction work of certain buildings for the Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore Ltd. was estimated by the Income-tax Officer at 121/2% of the total bills received by the assessee in the place of 9.5% which the assessee had shown in his return and consequential additions were made to the income returned by the assessee in computing the total assessable income. The petitioner was also charged interest under S.139 and 215 in the assessment order Ext. P-2. For the year 1971-72 the petitioner was charged interest under S.217in making the assessment as per Ext. P-3. No appeals were preferred by the petitioner against either of these orders of assessment, but two revisions were filed by the petitioner-Company before the Commissioner of Income-tax, Ernakulam in March 1973 questioning the assessments made as per Exts P-2 and P-3. Those revision petitions were dismissed by the Commissioner of Income-tax as per his order Ext. P-6, wherein he held that the Income-tax Officer's estimation of profit for the two years was not in any way excessive and that in charging interest under S.139 and 215 for the year 1970-71 and under S.217 for the assessment year 1971-72 the Income-Tax Officer had not committed any illegality since none of the circumstances which would warrant any waiver or reduction of interest under the relevant provisions contained in the Income-tax Rules, 1962 had been made out by the assessee. The petitioner has brought this writ petition seeking to quash Ext. P-6.

2. Counsel appearing for the writ petitioner endeavoured hard to make out that in estimating the profit derived by the assessee from the contract relating to the construction work referred to above at 121/2 of the whole amount, the Income-tax Officer bad acted arbitrarily and that in refusing to grant relief in respect of the said matter the Commissioner of Income-tax had illegally failed to exercise his revisional jurisdiction reposed in him. I did not find it possible to accept this contention. In disposing of the revision petitions filed before him the Commissioner of Income-tax has duly adverted to the above facts, but he did not feel satisfied on a consideration of the materials available on record that the estimate made by the Income-Tax Officer can legitimately be characterised as excessive or arbitrary. In a proceeding under Art.226 of the Constitution this Court will not examine the correctness of the aforesaid conclusion arrived at by the Income-tax Officer, but would only enquire as to whether there was a proper application of the mind of the Commissioner to the case put forward before him by the assessee. It cannot be said in this case that the Commissioner has not applied his mind to the contention raised before him by the assessee in its revision petitions. Such being the position there is no scope for any interference by this Court with the finding arrived at by the Income-tax Commisioner in Ext. P-6 that the Income-tax Officer's estimate of profits for the two years had not been shown to be excessive or arbitrary.

3. The other point raised before the Commissioner relates to the levy of interest under S.139 and 215 for the year 1970-71 and S.217 for the year 1971-72. It was contended by the petitioner that no opportunity had been given to the Company by the Income-tax Officer to show cause against levy of such an interest. Under S.129 sub-section (8) where the return for an assessment year is furnished after the specified date the assessee is automatically made liable to pay simple interest at 12% per annum reckoned from the day immediately following the