Treaty interpretation for airline technical service income follows binding precedent and defeats the Revenue's addition.

Profit from technical services provided to other airlines was treated as covered by Article 8 of the applicable tax treaty, so it was not assessable in the manner proposed by the Revenue. The Tribunal applied the jurisdictional High Court's earlier ruling on the same issue for prior years and followed the Coordinate Bench decisions that had consistently adopted that binding interpretation. As the present appeals involved identical facts and no distinguishing feature was shown, the Tribunal upheld the relief granted by the first appellate authority and rejected the Revenue's challenge to the deletion of the additions.

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Issues: Whether the profit derived from providing technical services to other airlines is covered by Article 8 of the applicable Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements and thus not assessable in the manner proposed by the Revenue.

Analysis: The issue was already decided in the assessee's favour by the jurisdictional High Court for earlier assessment years, and the Coordinate Bench had followed that binding view in subsequent years. The Tribunal found that the present appeals involved identical facts and identical grounds, and no distinguishing feature was shown to depart from the settled position. Consistent with the earlier binding and co-ordinate bench decisions, the Tribunal upheld the relief granted by the first appellate authority.

Conclusion: The issue was decided in favour of the assessee and against the Revenue.

Final Conclusion: The Revenue's challenge to the deletion of the additions failed, and the orders of the first appellate authority were affirmed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an identical treaty interpretation issue has already been conclusively decided by the jurisdictional High Court and consistently followed in later years, the Tribunal should apply that binding precedent to the same recurring dispute.

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