The issue pertains to penalty under section 271(1)(c) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (‘the Act’ for short). The revenue authorities had imposed penalty on the ground that deduction under section 80HHC of the Act was wrongly claimed. The Tribunal however, deleted such penalty. The Tribunal noted that tax liability against the assessee was confirmed on the basis of the decision of the Apex Court in the case of CIT v. Ravindranathan Nair, 295 ITR 228. The Tribunal noted that such decision was not available when the assessee filed the return. On such basis, the Tribunal was prompted to delete the penalty.
Search operation was carried out in one M/s. G.B. & Company under section 132. Though the premises of the assessee were also searched during search operations, the same were in the capacity of an employee of the said company and not in individual capacity.
Section 37 of the Central Excise Act, 1944 is a rule making power of the Government. Sub-section (1) of section 37 provides that the Central Government may make rules to carry into effect the purposes of the Act. Sub-section (2) of section 37 provides that in particular and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing power such rules may provide for various issues contained in clauses (i) to (xxviii) of the said sub-section. Clause (xx) which is relevant for our purpose reads as under:
Incentive scheme was framed as a part of Government’s initiative to encourage modernization of existing industries in under-developed areas. The main purpose of the scheme was to accelerate the industrial development and to disperse industries to under-developed areas as well as to provide additional employment.
Tribunal relying on its decision in case of Radhe Developers v. ITO [2008] 23 SOT 420 (Ahd.) held that respondent assessee would be eligible for deduction under section 80-IB(10) of the Act on the housing project development though the assessee may not be the owner of the land.
Obviously therefore, the Assessing Officer of the searched person during the pendency of the assessment proceedings, could not have arrived at the satisfaction that the income was that of the present assessee and not the persons originally searched.
Rule 24 of the Income Tax Rules, 1963 makes it abundantly clear that the Tribunal cannot dismiss the appeal without adverting to the merits. Even on the day on which the hearing is adjourned, the appellant chose not to appear in person or through an authorised representative. It is incumbent upon the Tribunal to dispose of the appeal on merits after hearing the respondent and afterwards if the appellant appears and satisfy the Tribunal, sufficient cause for its non-appearance on the date of hearing, the Tribunal can set aside the ex parte order and restore the appeal. However, reliance of the Tribunal on the decision of the Delhi Bench in the case of Multiplan India (P.) Ltd. (supra) is erroneous and, therefore, requires to be set aside. In the instant case, it can be noted from the letters addressed by the present appellant to the Tribunal that it was awaiting transfer of both the appeals of 1998-99 and 1999-2000 since CIT (Appeals) had relied upon such orders of earlier years.
In the instant case, as can be noted from the findings of the Tribunal, Assessing Officer had not summoned any of the donors. However, it had issued the letters under section 133(6) of the Act. Assessing Officer had also called for confirmation letters which were received by it. The assessee also had furnished all other requisite documents like copies of DD, gift deed, copy of PAN cards, copy of acknowledgment of returns of the donors along with computation and balance sheet. It also found that all the donors were assessed to tax except one who was based at USA. On thus having found identity of the donors so also creditworthiness and genuineness of the transaction having been established, Tribunal did not accept the say of the Revenue that the gifts were bogus.
The learned CIT(A) on proper examination of evidences and material rightly came to the conclusion that software is intangible asset and was loaded in the system of machine. The learned CIT(A) also rightly held that installation of software could be checked by the technical person whether it was loaded in the system or not. Therefore, the finding in the survey cannot be relied upon. Even the AO has accepted the fact that some of the software were developed locally and installed in the system.
Assessee was statutorily required to keep share application money in the separate account till the allotment of shares was completed. Interest earned on such separately kept amount was adjusted towards expenditure for raising share capital. We are therefore, of the opinion that interest earned was inextricably linked with requirement of company to raise share capital and was thus adjustable towards the expenditures involved for the share issue. Line of decisions of Apex Court in case of Bokaro Steel Ltd. (supra), Karnal Co-operative Sugar Mills Ltd. (supra) and Bongaigaon Refinary and Petrochemicals Ltd. (supra), would closely match with the facts of the present case.
