' AJMAL MIAN, C.J.-- By this common judgment we intend to dispose of all the above petitions as the same involve common questions of fact and law. In all the above petitions, after passing of the order by the learned Income Tax Tribunal, the department made an application for stating the cases to the High Court for its opinion but in all the above cases the applications were dismissed on the ground that the period provided was 60 days under section 66 of the Income-Tax Act 1922, (hereinafter referred to as the Act) whereas the contention of the petitioner-department was that after the enforcement of the Income Tax Ordinance 1979, the period of limitation provided in section 136 was 90 days. The above contention was rejected by the learned Income-tax Appellate Tribunal, The petitioners have, therefore filed the above petition.
2. In support of the above petition Mr. Waheed Farooqui, learned counsel for the petitioners has relied upon the case of Commissioner of Income Tax v. Saeeda Sarwat Sultana and others reported in 1986 PTD 368 (SCLAH), in which a D.B. Of the Lahore High Court took the view that section 136 of the Ordinance would be applicable as the law of limitation is a part of procedural law. On the contrary a D.B. Of this Court in the case of the Commissioner of Income Tax Central Zone 'B' Karachi v. Messrs Asbestos Cement Industries Ltd. 1988 PTD 227, has taken a contrary view. From the above-cited judgment of the Lahore High Court, it seems that the attention of the learned Judges was not invited to clause (a) of subsection (2) of section 156 of the Ordinance which provides as follows: "(a) Where a return of income has been filed before the commencement of this Ordinance by any person for any assessm ent year, proceedings for the assessment of that person for that year may be taken and continued as if this Ordinance has not come into force."
On the basis of the above clause it has been held in the above Karachi case that the limitation provided in section 66 of the Act namely, 60 days would be applicable to the cases in which original assessm ent orders were passed under the Act. The relevant portion of the above judgment reads as follows:- "The present reference applications cannot be treated as one under Subsection (2) of Section 66 because the Appellate Tribunal dismissed the reference applications under subsection (1) of Section 66 as barred by time, and for the same reason we have held that the applications do not lie under subsection (2) of Section 136."
3. We would follow the above judgment of this Court and would dismiss the above petition but there will be no order as to costs.