2015 (9) TMI 758

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....d for rearing prawns would be treated as 'plant' within Section 32 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') for the purposes of allowing depreciation thereon. We may mention at the outset that one Division Bench of the High Court of Kerala in the case of the same assessee had on earlier occasion decided the aforesaid question in the negative holding that it is not a 'plant'. However, another Division Bench by the impugned judgment dated 14.10.2014, even after noticing the earlier judgment, has not agreed with the earlier opinion and has rendered contrary decision. We are, therefore, at this stage constrained to remark that the Division Bench which has given the impugned judgment dated 14.10....

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....to consideration the earlier judgments on which some reliance was placed by the learned counsel for the Revenue and are suitably dealt with. The relevant portion of the said judgment reads as under: "5. It was the case of the assessee that it was entitled to investment allowance as applicable to a plant in respect of its power generating station building. In a note filed before the Commissioner (Appeals) it stated that it had included for the purpose the value of its Potential Transformer Foundation. Cable Duct System, Outdoor Yard Structures and Tail Race Channel. It explained that the process of generation started from letting in water from the reservoir into the pen-stocks and ducts which were the water conductor system into the turbin....

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....ting system. 7. Our attention has been drawn by learned Counsel for the Revenue to the judgment of this Court in Commissioner of Income Tax v. Anand Theatres 224 I.T.R. 192. He submits that, in that judgment, this Court has held that, except in exceptional cases, the building in which the plant is situated must be distinguished from the plant and that, therefore, the assessee's generating station building was not to be treated as a plant for the purposes of investment allowance. 8. It is difficult to read the judgment in the case of Anand Theatres so broadly. The question before the court was whether a building that was used as a hotel or a cinema theatre could be given depreciation on the basis that it was a "plant" and it was in....