Bogus purchase disallowances fail where contemporaneous records establish receipt, utilisation, and payments despite supplier-side compliance irregularities.
Documented purchases cannot be disallowed as bogus solely because suppliers later become non-compliant, untraceable, or have GST registrations cancelled. Contemporaneous contracts, purchase orders, invoices, delivery and manpower records, e-way bills, banking trails, GST entries, and evidence of use in executed works establish actual receipt where no evidence links the purchaser to a sham transaction or payment recycling. Supplier-side defaults require action against suppliers and do not negate supported procurement. Reliance on incomplete or irrelevant third-party statements breaches natural justice, particularly where books are not rejected. An addition for an alleged transaction cannot stand without verification where the purchaser denies that any transaction occurred; a purchaser need not prove a negative fact.
Issues: (i) Whether the disallowance of purchases from the principal supplier as bogus was sustainable; (ii) Whether the disallowance of purchases from the other suppliers as bogus was sustainable; (iii) Whether an addition for an alleged supplier transaction was valid where no transaction had been undertaken.
Issue (i): Whether the disallowance of purchases from the principal supplier as bogus was sustainable.
Analysis: The assessment under Section 143(3) read with Section 153A of the Income-tax Act, 1961 could not rest on statements of personnel who were not responsible for procurement, particularly where their statements did not implicate the assessee and complete statements relied upon were not furnished. Such reliance was inconsistent with principles of natural justice. The supplier's subsequent non-existence, GST cancellation, non-filing of return, or its subsequent use of funds did not establish that supplies and labour services received by the assessee were fictitious, absent a nexus between the supplier's affairs and the assessee.
Analysis: The assessee discharged its burden of proof through the subcontract, invoices, purchase orders, delivery records, running bills, payment trail and evidence of utilisation in executed construction contracts. The books of account were not rejected under Section 145(3) of the Income-tax Act, 1961. The material did not establish that the payments had returned to the assessee or that the documented supplies were not received.
Conclusion: The purchases from the principal supplier were genuine and their disallowance as bogus was deleted, in favour of the assessee.
Issue (ii): Whether the disallowance of purchases from the other suppliers as bogus was sustainable.
Analysis: GST registration cancellation after the relevant transactions, non-filing of income-tax returns by a supplier, later non-availability at its address, differing HSN codes, or discrepancies in vehicle particulars could not, without evidence of non-delivery or sham transactions, justify an adverse inference against the purchaser. Section 29 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 permits cancellation of registration in multiple circumstances; cancellation alone did not prove that the preceding transactions were fictitious.
Analysis: Purchase orders, invoices, e-way bills, delivery challans, attendance and employee-wise records for manpower services, GST portal entries, photographs where available, and payments through banking channels established the actual receipt of goods or services. Supplier-side compliance defaults required action against the respective supplier and did not displace the evidence supporting the assessee's purchases.
Conclusion: The purchases from the other suppliers were genuine and the related additions were deleted, in favour of the assessee.
Issue (iii): Whether an addition for an alleged supplier transaction was valid where no transaction had been undertaken.
Analysis: The assessee had specifically denied any transaction with the alleged supplier, and the assessment contained no basis for the quantified addition. No verification was undertaken to contradict the denial. The assessee could not be required to prove a negative fact.
Conclusion: The unsupported addition for the alleged supplier transaction was deleted, in favour of the assessee.
Final Conclusion: The purchase additions founded on supplier-side irregularities, unconnected third-party material, and an unsubstantiated alleged transaction could not be sustained where the assessee established actual procurement and utilisation through contemporaneous records.
Ratio Decidendi: A documented purchase cannot be disallowed as bogus merely because the supplier subsequently becomes non-compliant, untraceable, or has its GST registration cancelled, unless reliable evidence links the purchaser to a sham transaction or establishes non-receipt of goods or services.