[The judgment of the Court was delivered by S. Rahman, J.]-This judgment disposes of the following tax reference:
(1) PTR 306/72, M/s. Burhan Transport Service Ltd. V. Commissioner of Income Tax Rawalpindi.
(2) PTR 307/72, M/s. Burhan Transport Service Ltd. V. Commissioner of Income Tax, Rawalpindi.
2. The petitioner is a private limited company engaged in the business of public transport. For the assessm ent year 1969-70 it declared an effective fleet of 81 buses and claimed towards repairs a sum of Rs. 1.83.356.0. For the year 1970-71', it declared an effective fleet of 9 buses and claimed Rs.
1,93,377.00 for repairs. The Income Tax Officer applied a standard formula of normal repair expenditure of 13000.00 per old bus and 6500.00 per new bus. The new and the old buses were worked out for each year and disallowance of 76,523 00 for the year 1969-70 and Rs. 1,02,370.00 for the next year was ordered. On appeal 15.0. 00 was allowed in 1969-70 for thelement of accident and 15000.00 for the next year on account of depreciation. The applied rates were confirmed. The petitioner has raised what he considers to be a question of law arising out of Tribunal's order for decision of this Court. It is as follows: "Whether on the facts and in the circumstances of the case there was any material to uphold the disallowance in repairs as made by the Income Tax Officer."
3. It is not denied by the petitioner that no stock register of the parts purchased and utilised was maintained on regular basis. The books of accounts were also found to be defective. In this background Rs. 13,000.00 per old bus and Rs. 6500.00 per new bus adopted as the proper repair expenditure. The petitioner hos provided us with the figures of earlier years in order to demonstrate that the disallowance is not relatable to any relevant consideration. In the immediately preceding year that is 1968-69 the total fleet of 4 5/12 buses is shown against which Rs. was claimed which was allowed. For the three years preceding, the figures are not so helpful to the petitioner, for in 1967-68 against a fleet of 6 buses Rs. 80,870.00 was said to have been allowed and for the year 1966-67 against the same number 51,846.00 was allowed and in 1965-66 it was 55,700.00 for a fleet of 6 buses. Keeping in view the past history as depicted by the petitioner himself it cannot be said that the variance is so great as to appear to be arbitrary. It has also to be kept in view that the accident expenditure has been separately provided for and similarly heavy expenditure on purchase of spare parts not covered by this permissible expenditure. In the absence of the stock registers and proper accounts the controversy raised by the petitioner remains substantially in the domain of facts and poses no question of law. The finding of fact recorded is that there is no stock register of the purchase and is of the spare parts and that the accounts kept are defective. In the absence of these documents the authorities have adopted a fair and relevant standard for evaluating the reasonableness of the expenditure on repairs.
4. We find no merit and answer the question in the affirmative. The petitioner shall bear the costs of the proceedings as well.