Midas Golden Distilleries Pvt. Ltd Vs DCIT (ITAT Chennai)
Director’s 132(4) Statement Backed by Seized Loose Sheets & Excise Records Held Valid Evidence; Mere Plea of ‘Old vs. New Bottles’ Rejected ITAT Chennai
Assesee company, a major manufacturer of alcoholic beverages & supplier to the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation(TASMAC), was subjected to a search u/s 132 on 09.11.2017. During the search on the premises of its bottle & carton suppliers – M/s SSE & M/s SSC, loose sheets were seized which allegedly revealed systematic over-invoicing of bottles & cartons sold to Assessee.
The Director of the assessee, Shri KK, in his sworn statement u/s 132(4), admitted that SSE & SSC had been over-invoicing bottles & cartons at agreed rates (ranging from 10 to 30 paise per bottle & 75 paise to ₹1.75 per carton). He further stated that cash generated by bogus purchases at SSE was siphoned off & passed back to Assessee to meet incidental business expenses. He quantified unaccounted income from over-invoicing at more than ₹66 crore (from FY 2007-08 onwards), including about ₹9.26 crore for FY 2013-14 relevant to AY 2014-15.
Assessee, in its return u/s 153A, had already disclosed ₹6.62 crore as additional income but contested the further addition of ₹2.64 crore made by the AO.
