This is a case concerning the disallowance of certain expenses...

This is a case concerning the disallowance of certain expenses termed as "route expenses" by the Assessing Officer (AO) due to lack of proper supporting vouchers. The key points are: The assessee made a surrender of Rs. 13 crores for all the years covered under search action. The Revenue cannot shift the burden on the assessee to prove the genuineness of expenses when nothing contrary was found during the search operations. The AO did not doubt the genuineness or allowability of expenses but harped upon the production of drivers, ignoring the search findings. Statements recorded u/s 132(4) and 131(1) have no evidentiary value and cannot be termed incriminating material, as per recent court rulings. Merely because drivers were unavailable during assessment, no addition is permissible without corroborating material proving the expenses were bogus, not business-related, or invoices were fake. The CIT(A)'s sustaining 60% of the hypothetical surrender is not tenable in law. All additions sustained by the CIT(A) are deleted. The assessee's appeals are allowed.