TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2010 (11) TMI 517
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....ppreciating that interest u/s 244A needs to be granted for delay in issue of refund to the assessee. 2. Should have further directed to grant interest on such delayed payment of interest, claimed but not granted by the Assessing Officer. 3. Facts of the case, in brief, are that the assessee has filed an appeal before the ITAT which passed the order on 4th March, 2004 giving certain reliefs to the assessee. The Assessing Officer passed the order giving effect to the ITAT's order on 23.4.2004 where refund of Rs.3,08,25,735/- and interest of Rs.18,22,490/- u/s 244A aggregating to Rs.3,26,48,225/- was determined to the assessee. Out of above refund, an amount of Rs.1,91,77,502/- was adjusted against the demand for Assessment Yea....
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.... the Act. 3.3 In appeal, the CIT(A) rejected the contention of the assessee by holding as under: "3 The appellant had originally come up with three grounds of appeal. During appeal hearing, an additional ground of appeal has been filed. The first set of grounds of appeal are inter-connected and are disposed of in a consolidated manner. The refund was delayed and interest was paid upto the date of refund. The appellant now desires interest on interest essentially relying on the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme court in the case of Sandvik Asia Ltd (280 ITR 643) and the Narendra Doshi case (254 ITR 606). In Sandvik Asia case there was an inordinate delay and the Hon'ble Supreme Court had taken serious exceptions to such delay. ....
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....t on interest. 5.2 The ld counsel for the assessee in his rejoinder drew the attention of the Bench to the following observations given by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the said decision: "Even assuming that there is no provision for payment of compensation, compensation for delay is required to be paid as the Act itself recognizes in principle the liability of the department to pay interest when excess tax was retained and the same principle should be extended to cases where interest was retained." 6. We have considered the rival submissions made by both the parties, perused the orders of the authorities below and the paper book filed on behalf of the assessee. We have also considered the various decisions cited befo....
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....the totality of the facts of the case and in view of the decision of the Hon'ble Apex Court cited supra, we are of the considered opinion that the assessee is entitled to interest u/s 244A on delayed refund of Rs.42,15,279 for the period from Sept 2004 to Dec. 2006. We do not find any merit on the observations made by the CIT(A) that the decision in the case of Sandvik Asia Ltd (supra) is an exceptional case and the said decision would apply to such exceptional cases. In our opinion, whenever there is a delay in granting refund to the assessee, in the view of the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Sandvik Asia Ltd (supra), the department has to pay compensation by way of interest for the delay in payment of amount lawfully....
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....acts are on record. In support of this contention, he relied on the following decisions: i) National thermal Power Co ltd vs CIT (299 ITR 383(SC) ii) Jute Corporation of India Ltd (187 ITR 688 (SC) iii) Ahmedabad Electricity Co ltd (199 ITR 351(Bom/FB) He submitted that in the instant case the only issue was a legal issue that once refund out of TDS/Advance tax has gone up due to set off of MAT credit against tax payable, such refund is eligible for interest u/s 244A. 12.1 The ld DR, on the other hand, supported the order of the CIT(A). 13. After hearing both the parties, we are of the considered opinion that the assessee can always raise a legal ground in the shape of additional ground before....