Remand limited to apportionment cannot justify enhancement of an accepted composite sale consideration under the tax scheme.

A remand limited to bifurcation and apportionment of an admitted composite sale price did not permit the Assessing Officer to reopen or enhance the total consideration already accepted under Chapter XXC of the Income-tax Act. The valuation exercise could be used only to split the disclosed sale price between land and the factory building, not to substitute a higher overall consideration. The Assessing Officer was therefore precluded from increasing the accepted sale consideration, and the assessee succeeded on that issue.

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Issues: Whether, on a remand confined to bifurcation and apportionment of the sale consideration between land and building in a composite sale, the Assessing Officer could reopen and enhance the total sale consideration already accepted under Chapter XXC of the Income-tax Act, 1961.

Analysis: The remand order was limited to examining the split of the admitted sale consideration of Rs. 17.50 lakhs between land and the factory building, and required a valuation report only for that purpose. The sale consideration itself had already been accepted by the appropriate authority under Chapter XXC, and there was no authority to re-examine or increase the total consideration. Once the valuation exercise was undertaken, it could not be used to enlarge the scope of the remand and substitute a higher sale consideration than the one originally disclosed and accepted.

Conclusion: The Assessing Officer was not entitled to enhance the sale consideration from Rs. 17.50 lakhs to Rs. 21,42,502/-. The issue was answered in favour of the assessee and against the Revenue.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a remand is confined to apportionment of an admitted composite sale price, the Assessing Officer cannot enlarge the remand to reassess the total sale consideration that has already been accepted under the applicable statutory scheme.

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