Revenue appeal dismissed against disallowance under section 14A; earlier decisions and coordinate benches upheld assessee

HC dismissed the revenue's appeal challenging disallowance under section 14A for expenditure attributable to earning exempt income, affirming that prior decisions in the assessee's own earlier years had rejected revenue's contention. The court noted coordinate benches reached the same view and declined to disturb the ITAT outcome, resulting in the disallowance challenge failing in favor of the respondent/assessee.

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Application for condonation of delay of 250 days in re-filing the appeal was allowed; delay condoned. The appeal (ITA 170/2023) relates to Assessment Year 2013-14. The Tribunal's impugned order dated 25.10.2021 had sustained the deletion of a disallowance under Section 14A of the Income Tax Act, 1961; the AO had quantified the disallowance at Rs.7,24,23,249/-. It was not disputed that earlier appeals in the assessee's own case for AYs 2009-10 and 2010-11 had been dismissed. The Bench noted reliance on several coordinate-bench decisions, including orders in Pr. Commissioner of Income Tax, Delhi - 4 v. M/s MMTC Ltd. (05.12.2022), Pr. Commissioner of Income Tax (Central)-2 v. M/s Era Infrastructure (India) Ltd. (20.07.2022), Principal Commissioner of Income-tax v. Delhi International Airport (P.) Ltd. (2022) 144 taxmann.com 80, and Pr. CIT v. Bharat Hotels Ltd. (11.08.2015). Having regard to these precedents, "no substantial question of law arises" and the appeal is closed.

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