ITAT allowed the appeal of the assessee, deleting the addition...

ITAT allowed the appeal of the assessee, deleting the addition made by the AO on account of alleged excess purchases based on differences between VAT returns and books of account. ITAT held that, under the applicable VAT Rules, mandatory reversal of input tax credit on goods returned necessarily causes variations between VAT records and commercial books, without implying inflation of purchases. The assessee's supplier-wise reconciliation was found credible, and no material was brought by the AO to establish bogus or unverifiable purchases. With sales figures matching in both records and the variation being less than one percent of total purchases, ITAT found the disallowance by AO and its confirmation by CIT(A) unjustified.