Case Law Details
Shyam Sunder Jindal Vs. Asst. CIT (ITAT Delhi)
In the present case, no original document was brought on record and also not confronted to the assessee. The assessing officer also admitted in para 11 of the assessment order that a copy of bank statement for a period from November 2005 to February 2007 was provided to the Authorized Representative of the assessee on 21-11-2014 but nowhere he stated that the original document/evidence was confronted to the assessee. It is also noticed from the translation version of the said information reproduced by the assessing officer at pages no. 3 to 10 of the assessment order dated 27-2-2015 that the said document/evidence was not signed by any authority and did not demonstrate in any manner that the same was a photocopy of bank statement, it was also not on the letter head of any bank, neither it was stamped by any bank nor it bore signature of any official of any bank. Therefore, it is not clear how and in what manner the said document was considered as the bank statement of HSBC Bank, Geneva, particularly when there was no indication as to the branch and country to which the alleged bank statement related. In the present case, the assessing officer although stated that the documents had been obtained under DTAA but nowhere it was mentioned that under which DTAA those documents had been obtained. If the aforesaid documents had been received under DTAA, nothing is brought on record to substantiate that any letter was issued by the competent authority of the relevant country from which the aforesaid documents were obtained, the assessee also asked for the same but nothing was provided to the assessee. Therefore, in the absence of all the relevant documents/evidences on record, it is not possible to come to a just conclusion relating to the authenticity of the document relied by the assessing officer or to the facts as to whether these documents pertained to the assessee.
In the present case also the documents relied by the assessing officer are the copies of the copies which did not have any signature of bank official or name of the bank or the place or the country were the branch was situated. The assessing officer himself admitted in para 6 of the assessment order that the requisite information from the Swiss Banking Authority had not been received.
We, therefore, considering the totality of the facts as discussed herein above, set aside the impugned order and restore the matter back to the file of the assessing officer to be adjudicated afresh in accordance with law after providing due and reasonable opportunity of being heard and by confronting the assessee with the documents which relates to him.
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