The main legal point established is that the power to impose penalty under Section 273 of the Income-tax Act, 1961, is limited to regular assessment proceedings and cannot be applied to reassessment proceedings.

K.C. Agrawal, CJ.-The Income-tax Appellate Tribunal has referred under Section 25 6(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961(for short “the Act”), the following question:

“Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Tribunal was justified in holding that no penalty can be levied, as the Income-tax Officer initiated penal action in the course of reassessment proceedings in connection with the regular assessment as contemplated by Section 273 of the Act of 1961?”

2. Theoriginal assessment was made on December 5, 1974, on a total income of Rs. 10,471. Thereafter, proceedings under Section 147 of the Income-tax Act, 1961, were initiated in which the assessment was made on a total income of Rs. 60,437. Simultaneously, proceedings under Section 273(b) of the Act were started during the reassessment proceedings for the assessee’s failure to file proper advance tax estimates to be made in view of Section 212(3) and pay tax accordingly. The assessee contended before the Income-tax Officer that the penal proceedings could not be initiated in reassessment proceedings. He did not accept the arguments of the assessee and imposed penalty of Rs. 3,000. On appeal, the Appellate Assistant Commissioner quashed the penalty on the ground that penalty proceedings under Section 273(b) could not be legally initiated in the course of reassessment proceedings. Feeling aggrieved, the Revenue went up in appeal to the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal which upheld the order of the Appellate Assistant Commissioner by finding that penalty could be imposed in regular assessment proceedings.

3. Counsel for the Commissioner argued that Section 273(a) is not confined to power of imposition of penalty to the regular assessment proceedings made under Section 143 or 144 of the Act. Consequently, the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal erred in holding that the penalty imposed was illegal.

4. Section 2(40) of the Income-tax Act defines the expression “regular assessment” as meaning an assessment made under Section 143 or Section 144 of the Act.

5. Section 273 empowers the Assessing Officer, in the course of any proceedings in connection with the regular assessment for any assessment year, to impose penalty for the reasons enumerated in clauses (a) and

(b) of the said section. The argument of the assessee was that when the Legislature conferred the power of levy of penalty only in regular proceedings, the said power cannot be utilised in proceedings different from those contemplated by the said provision. In other words, the submission was that reassessment proceedings cannot be kept at par and hence, no penalty could be levied in these proceedings.

6. Learned Counsel for the assessee contended that the expression “regular proceedings” having been defined in the Act, it is that meaning which has to be given for the purposes of Section 273(a). The settled principle, according to him, is that if an expression, has been defined in the Act, that meaning alone has to be treated as exhaustive. Section 2(40) reads as under:

“2. (40) ‘regular assessment’ means the assessment made under Section 143 or 144.”

7. We find substance in the submission of the assessee’s Counsel and are unable to widen the meaning of the aforesaid expression by importing into it something not provided for. Under this definition, only a proceeding which is taken under sections 143 and 144 is covered. The Legislature, if it had desired to empower the income-tax authorities to impose penalty, even in reassessment proceedings, it could have provided for the same. The Allahabad High Court in CIT vs. Smt. Jagjit Kaur [1980] 126 ITR 540, held that the assessments made under Section 147(a) read with Section 143(3) were not “regular assessments” within the meaning of Section 273(b) read with Section 2 12(3) and, therefore, the levy of penalty was not valid. We are in agreement with the aforesaid view and hold that we cannot read the words “regular assessment” as occurring in Section 273 as justifyin