Case Law Details
Om Parkash Nahar Vs. ITO ( ITAT-Delhi)
The amount deposited during demonetization period was relate to out of withdrawals from the same account from 2014,2015 & 2016 is not treated as income from undisclosed source
The assessee’s explanation is that looking to his old age and suffering from various ailments as he had suffered a heart attack and had juvenile diabetes, therefore, for his mental security he was in the habit of keeping huge cash with him. This is also evident from the fact as brought out on record by the ld. Counsel that since beginning, assessee has been withdrawing cash and keeping it with him after withdrawing from his bank account. It has also been submitted by him that the assessee had under-went bypass surgery and operation in the past and looking to his ailment and staying alone with his wife, therefore, he has been withdrawing and keeping cash for his personal and psychological security. In support of this explanation, he has shown the bank accounts of the assessee and pattern of his cash withdrawals and filed a chart depicting cash in hand after withdrawing from bank starting from 1.11.2012.
Thus, Ld. Counsel submitted that looking to the peculiar facts of the assessee’s case and in the habit of withdrawing the money and keeping in the form of cash at home cannot be doubted. When the Govt. announced the demonetisation, the cash kept by him over a period of time has been deposited in the bank account and the entire source is from the money withdrawn by him from his own bank account from time to time.
After considering the facts and material on record and on perusal of the bank statement, ITAT find that the assessee had been making huge withdrawals from time to time. The assessee is having huge income from rent which is Rs.2,58,750/- per month which the assessee has been receiving through cheque in his bank account and such rental income has been disclosed in the return of income of Om Prakash Nahar, HUF. Apart from that, assessee is also getting pension from Government of India. Besides this, the assessee has no source of income or is involved in any business or profession. From the perusal of the history of cash withdrawals starting from the financial year 2014-15, we find that assessee has been regularly withdrawing huge cash amount on various dates and there was hardly any credit balance left in his bank account. The funds flow statement as incorporated above clearly shows that each and every withdrawal has been mentioned and utilization thereof and the money being withdrawn from the bank account. Even after house-hold withdrawal, there was a huge amount available with the assessee in the form of cash. Under these facts and circumstances stated by the assessee, it cannot be held to be improbability that assessee did not have any availability of cash at the time of demonetisation. It has not been brought on record whether assessee was carrying out any business or profession or was having income from undisclosed sources of income which can be said to be available with the assessee in the form of cash. If the assessee had no source of income apart from rental or pension income and some interest amount and same income earned regularly has been withdrawn regularly leaving very less cash in the bank account, that shows the pattern that the assessee was indeed in the habit of keeping the money in the form of cash probably looking the old age and various ailments as explained by him. Under these circumstances, we find that the explanation of the assessee to be reasonable and plausible and preponderance of probability is in the favour of the assessee and without any adverse material it cannot be presumed that the cash deposited by the assessee is out of some his undisclosed source.
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