Case Law Details
ITO Vs Armine Hamied Khan (ITAT Mumbai)
Assessing Officer rejected the claim made by the assessee under section 54F on the ground that it amounts to a fresh claim made in the course of scrutiny assessment proceedings, and, as the claim is not made by way of revising the income tax return and in the light of Hon’ble Supreme Court’s judgment in the case of Goetz India Limited Vs CIT [(2006) 204 CTR 182 (SC)], the claim so made is inadmissible in law. The claim for exemption under section 54F was held to be vitiated in law.
This is not a case where there is a mistake in the return of income which could be corrected only by filing a revising return, this is a case where there is a bonafide claim made by the appellant. However, same was made under wrong section. Therefore, this mistake can be corrected while deciding the assessment itself.
The appellant has earned LTCG of Rs 4,76 crores and invested this money in a residential property. Therefore, the appellant was entitled to exemption under section 54F. However, the appellant had claimed the exemption under section 54.
Here is a case in which a claim for exemption was rightly made, but only a wrong section was quoted while making a claim, which is qualitatively different from was no fresh claim was such. In our considered view, therefore, the Assessing Officer was indeed in error in adopting such a hyper-pedantic approach and in holding that there was a fresh claim for exemption under section 54F. The grievance raised by the Assessing Officer, in this appeal, is, therefore, devoid of any legally sustainable merits. It proceeds on the fallacious assumption that a change of section, on account of an inadvertent and bonafide error, under which the claim is made, by itself, amounts to a fresh claim. We reject the same.
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