Case Law Details
Sudhakar Motiram Kadam Vs ITO (ITAT Pune)
The issue under consideration is whether the assessee can challenge the order of AO for which he has agreed before without there being any contrary evidence?
In the instant case, the assessee debited some amount towards Salary to labourers. The AO found certain infirmities in the details furnished in as much as the expenses were mostly backed by self-made vouchers. The assessee agreed for ad hoc disallowance before the AO, which addition was made and came to be countenanced in the first appeal. Now the assessee is aggrieved by the confirmation of such an addition.
ITAT states that there is no legal bar on challenging an agreed addition, but the fact of the matter is that a valid challenge can be laid before the appellate authorities only if such an admission before the AO was not in consonance with law. If, on the other hand, an admission is based purely on factual matrix, then the assessee cannot challenge the same before the appellate authorities without there being any contrary evidence. The reason is obvious that when an assessee agrees for an addition, the AO does not proceed further in his examination on that issue and closes it by recording the concession of the assessee. The later challenge to such an admission de hors any contrary evidence cannot bring the arms of the clock back enabling the AO to continue from the stage where he left the issue on the assessee agreeing for the surrender. In such a scenario, the assessee cannot be allowed to resile from the agreed addition made before the AO in the backdrop of a pure factual panorama. The extant addition, being an agreed addition on purely factual aspects without any thing contrary, cannot, ergo, be interfered with. ITAT, therefore, countenance the impugned order on this score. Accordingly the appeal filed by the assessee is dismissed.
FULL TEXT OF THE ITAT JUDGEMENT
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