Case Law Details
DCIT Vs DLF Assets Pvt Ltd. (ITAT Delhi)
The assessee is without doubt a Developer of a SEZ, having been in fact allowed deduction u/s.80-IAB on it’s other income/s, as from service agreements, chargeable u/s. 28. That the said income is assessable as business income, and only rightly so, inasmuch as the source thereof is the commercial activity of providing a range of services, is besides the point. We have in fact found the said services as only enabling services, i.e., enabling the enjoyment and the user of the house property, developed by the assessee as a developer thereof — a term defined under SEZ Act, 2005. By letting the built-up space, the assessee is only turning into account it’s investment in the house property, being a building and land appurtenant thereto. It is, in fact, this – the construction of a building suitable for the firms operating in the IT sector, that qualifies it as a developer of an Info-park, approved as a SEZ. That the said activity, i.e., developing real estate and leasing it, which is, broadly speaking, and in common parlance, only a business, is not regarded as so for the purpose of assessment of income there-from, being derived from a house property, a defined source of income for which a specific head of income is provided under the Act, is another matter. This is so even where it is carried in an organized manner, i.e., as a business, as in the present case. It shall, however, not cease, for that reason, to be profits and gains derived from the activity of developing a SEZ. The word `business’ – even otherwise a word of wide and indefinite import, as occurring in section 80-IAB(1), is to be, accordingly, construed in a broad rather than a strict sense, as conveying the gamut of activities, including activities subservient and incidental to developing a SEZ and turning it into account. Now, surely, leasing of house property, inasmuch as the lessees (who are to be, or presumably so, in info-tech business) would be able to undertake their businesses only on the developed property being made available to them, could not therefore but be regarded as the principal activity yielding income from the development of a SEZ. In fact, even the income (to the assessee) from providing ancillary and maintenance services to these businesses arises or stands to arise only on account of, or by virtue of, their being lessees. The lease rental income, on the lease of the house property thereto, would thus, in our view, notwithstanding the use of the words ‘profit§ and gains’ and ‘business’ in section 80-IAB(1), qualify to be eligible for deduction there-under. That is, the lease rental is within the contemplation of the profits derived by a developer of a SEZ from the ‘business’ of developing it, eligible for deduction u/s. 80-IAB. It is in fact this that forms the basis of the decisions in Coimbatore Hitech Infrastructure (P.) Ltd. (supra) and Global Tech Park Pvt. Ltd. (supra). The head of income under which the said income is assessable, which is on the basis of the source — from amongst the specified sources under the Act, most appropriate for the said income, so that it is not assessable as business income but as income from house property, would not be a limiting or debilitating factor.
FULL TEXT OF THE ITAT JUDGEMENT
This appeal by the revenue is preferred against the order of the CIT(A)-3, Delhi dated 21.06.2016 pertaining to A.Y. 2012-13.
2. The solitary grievance of the revenue is that the CIT(A) erred in allowing deduction u/s. 80IAB of the Act to the assessee.
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