Consistency in Tribunal findings bars a contrary view on identical sham gift transactions without new material.

On identical facts, a Tribunal cannot treat cross-gift transactions as genuine where an earlier Bench of the same Tribunal had already found the same arrangement to be a sham. The Court noted that the later Tribunal identified no new material and did not show that the earlier facts had been overlooked, so its contrary conclusion was unsustainable in the interests of consistency and institutional integrity. The Tribunal was therefore wrong in holding the gifts to be real, and the question was answered against the assessee and in favour of the revenue. The connected question, which assumed the gifts were real, became unnecessary and was left unanswered.

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Issues: Whether, on the same facts, the Tribunal could hold that the gifts were real when an earlier Bench of the same Tribunal had held the identical transactions to be sham.

Analysis: The earlier reference had already treated the cross-gift arrangement as an artificial device and characterised it as a sham transaction. The later Tribunal did not identify any genuinely new material that had not been before the earlier Bench, nor did it explain that the earlier facts had been overlooked. The Court held that, on identical facts, a Tribunal cannot arrive at a conclusion directly opposed to an earlier concluded finding of the same Tribunal, as such a course would impair judicial consistency and institutional integrity. The second question, which proceeded on the footing that the gifts were real, became unnecessary once the first question was answered.

Conclusion: The Tribunal was wrong in holding the gifts to be real. The question was answered against the assessee and in favour of the revenue, and the connected question was left unanswered as unnecessary.

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