Gyasuddin Mohammad Ansari Vs ITO (ITAT Patna)
The Patna DB Bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Kolkata (virtual court) allowed the assessee’s appeal for AY 2023-24, holding that the CIT(A) erred in arbitrarily estimating the indexed cost of acquisition at ₹20 lakh without assigning any cogent basis.
The Tribunal noted that the assessee had furnished the Minimum Valuation Register (MVR) rates downloaded from the Government’s Bhoomi Jankari – Bihar portal to substantiate the cost of acquisition of land received through Panchnama Batwara. Merely doubting the credibility of a government-hosted document, without verification, was held to be unsustainable.
It was observed that if the appellate authority had any doubt regarding the authenticity of the MVR data, it ought to have verified the same from the concerned authority instead of resorting to an ad-hoc estimation, which has no sanction in law. Accordingly, the Tribunal directed the Assessing Officer to accept the cost of acquisition as per the MVR rates, subject to verification from the competent authority, and recompute the capital gains in accordance with law.
Both grounds raised by the assessee were allowed and the appeal was allowed in full.
FULL TEXT OF THE ORDER OF ITAT PATNA
This appeal filed by the assessee is against the order of the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals)-NFAC, Delhi [hereinafter referred to as Ld. ‘CIT(A)’] passed u/s 250 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’) for AY 2023-24 dated 04.06.2025.
