Reassessment under section 147 cannot be sustained where the...

Reassessment under section 147 cannot be sustained where the income forming the recorded basis for reopening is not ultimately added. The Tribunal applied the binding principle that "and also" is conjunctive, so the Assessing Officer must first assess or reassess the escaped income identified in the recorded reasons before bringing in any other issue. Here, the reopening was based solely on alleged unexplained cash deposits during the demonetisation period, but that issue did not survive in reassessment. The resulting disallowance of interest expenditure on a different footing was therefore held to be unsustainable and deleted.

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