2015 (5) TMI 193

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.... (C) No.29127/2011, SLP (C) No.30643/2011, 11 SLP (C) No.9943/2015, SLP(C) No. 6085/2012, SLP(C) No. 25000/2011, SLP(C) No. 24329/2011, SLP(C) No. 24331/2011, SLP(C) No. 24332/2011, SLP(C) No. 24333/2011, SLP(C) No. 25001/2011, SLP(C) No. 30642/2011, SLP(C) No. 28131/2011, SLP(C) No. 30641/2011, SLP(C) No. 29128/2011, SLP(C) No. 28167/2011, SLP(C) No. 28130/2011, SLP(C) No. 28147/2011, SLP(C) No. 28148/2011, SLP(C) No. 28169/2011, SLP(C) No. 33053/2011, SLP(C) No. 23109/2012, SLP(C) No. 31167/2012, SLP(C) No. 28756-28757/2011, SLP(C) No. 21298/2012, SLP(C) No. 27671/2011, SLP(C) No. 27673/2011, SLP(C) No. 27249/2011, SLP(C) No. 31278/2011, SLP(C) No. 26807/2011, SLP(C) No. 28168/2011, SLP(C) No. 34137/2011, SLP(C) No. 26010/2011, SLP(C) No.....

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...., SLP(C) No. 12061/2015, SLP(C) No. 12106/2015, SLP (C)No. 9153/2014   SLP (C)No. 9153/2014 is taken on board with the consent of the parties. Delay condoned. All these special leave petitions are filed by the Revenue/ Department of Income tax against the judgments rendered by various High Courts deciding identical issue which pertains to the deduction under Section 80IB(10) of the Income Tax Act, as applicable prior to 01.04.2005. We may mention at the outset that all the High Courts have taken identical view in all these cases holding that the deduction under the aforesaid provision would be admissible to a "housing project". All the assessees had undertaken construction projects which were approved by the municipal au....

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....t" by giving grammatical meaning thereto as housing project is not defined under the Income Tax Act insofar as the aforesaid provision is concerned. Since sub-section (10) of Section 80IB very categorically mentioned that such a project which is undertaken as housing project is approved by a local authority, once the project is approved by the local authority it is to be treated as the housing project. We may also point out that the High Court had made observations in the context of Development Control Regulations (hereinafter referred to as 'DCRs' in short) under which the local authority sanctions the housing projects and noted that in these DCRs itself, an element of commercial activity is provided but the total project is still ....

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.... present case, since the assessee has accepted the decision of the Tribunal in allowing Section 80IB(10) deduction to a part of the project, we do not disturb the findings of the Tribunal in that behalf. e) Clause (d) inserted to Section 80IB(10) with effect from 1/4/2005 is prospective and not retrospective and hence cannot be applied for the period prior to 1/4/2005." We are in agreement with the aforesaid answers given by the High Court to the various issues. We may only clarify that insofar as answer at para (a) is concerned, it would mean those projects which are approved by the local authorities as housing projects with commercial element therein. There was much debate on the answer given in para (b) above. It was argued by M....