Case Law Details
Brief of the Case
Bombay High Court held In the case of Techpac Holdings Ltd. vs. DCIT that it is an admitted position that notices under sections 148, 142(1) and 143(2), never served on the Petitioner. The Revenue seeks to justify service of these notices by contending that they have served the said notices on the last known address of the Petitioner which was the address of Ingram Micro India [earlier known as Tech Pacific India], the downstream company of the Petitioner. We fail to see how the notices being served on Ingram Micro India would amount to service on the Petitioner. This is more so in the facts of the present case considering that admittedly on the date when these notices were sought to be served on Ingram Micro India, the Revenue was aware of the address of the Petitioner. Despite having this address prior to issuance of the notices, we fail to understand why these notices were not served on the Petitioner at this address. In these circumstances, service of the notices on Ingram Micro India which is a subsidiary of the Petitioner would not be good service on the Petitioner.
More ever, the shares of the Petitioner have been transferred to Ingram Micro Asia by the Petitioner’s shareholders and therefore the transferor in the aforesaid transaction is the shareholders of the Petitioner and not the Petitioner. In these circumstances, if there was any liability towards capital gains tax, if at all, it was that of the shareholders of the Petitioner and not the Petitioner itself. This being the position in law, the Assessing Officer could never have reason to believe that income of the Petitioner chargeable to tax in India had escaped assessment. Hence without valid servicing of notices, assessment u/s 144 is not valid.
Facts of the Case
The Petitioner is a company incorporated under the laws of Bermuda and is the holding company of the entire Techpac Group. It is an undisputed position that the shares of the Petitioner company (equity as well as preferential) were held by certain non-resident as well as resident shareholder. The Petitioner is a holding company and has under its fold several operating companies in Australia, New Zealand and Thailand including a company called Tech Pacific Asia Ltd., a company registered in the British Virgin Islands. In turn, Tech Pacific Asia Ltd. was the holding company of Techpac Mauritius Ltd. as well as other operating companies in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. Techpac Mauritius Ltd. was in turn the holding company of an Indian subsidiary by the name of Tech Pacific (India) Ltd. (Tech Pacific India). This Indian subsidiary in turn was the holding company of Tech Pacific India (Exports) Pte. Ltd. which was a company incorporated in Singapore. All the aforesaid companies (over 20 Companies in 13 different countries) are hereinafter referred to as the Techpac Group. Hence the Petitioner was the ultimate holding company of the Techpac Group.
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