Treaty taxability of borrowed services fees follows earlier years and MAP resolution, with no fee for technical services treatment.

Borrowed services fees were held not to constitute fee for technical services under the India-Singapore DTAA because the same receipts had already been consistently treated as business profits in the assessee's own earlier years. The record also showed that the issue had been resolved through the Mutual Agreement Procedure and related Department appeals had been withdrawn. In the absence of any distinguishing facts, the receipts remained taxable only as business profits under Article 7 and not in India without a permanent establishment.

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Issues: Whether borrowed services fees received by the assessee were taxable as fee for technical services or constituted business profits under Article 7 of the India-Singapore Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement.

Analysis: The dispute was covered by consistent earlier decisions in the assessee's own case for preceding assessment years, where the same type of borrowed services receipts were held not to be fee for technical services. The record also showed that the relevant issue had been resolved under the Mutual Agreement Procedure, and the Department had earlier withdrawn related appeals. No distinguishing facts were brought out to justify a different view for the year under appeal.

Conclusion: The borrowed services fees were not taxable as fee for technical services and were to be treated as business profits under Article 7, with no taxability in the absence of a permanent establishment in India. The Revenue's challenge failed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where an identical treaty-taxability issue has been consistently decided in the assessee's own case and the relevant receipts have also been resolved under the Mutual Agreement Procedure, the Revenue cannot successfully recharacterize the same receipts as fee for technical services in the absence of distinguishing facts.

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