2017 (2) TMI 678

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....justified in law in confirming the order of the CIT (Appeal) in deleting the penalty levied under Section 271(1) (c) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 on the ground that the assessee is entitled to immunity from penalty on account of Explanation 5 to Section 271 (1) (c) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 when the assessee's case does not come under the purview of the exceptions provided therein? (ii) Tribunal is justified in holding that the disclosures made by the offering incomes in the returns under Section 153A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 is tantamount to extension of disclosure made under Section 132(4) of the Income Tax Act, 1961?" The Tribunal by the said order dealt with three appeals of the Revenue pertaining to several assessment years be....

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....e thereon. Mr. Chowdhury, learned Advocate appearing on behalf of the Revenue submitted that the manner in which the undisclosed incomes had been derived could not be explained by the assessee. According to him the exception provided in clause 2 of Explanation 5 under Section 271(1) did not apply to the assessee. He further argued that at best immunity is available to the assessee only for the year of search for which the due date of filing return had not expired. Such immunity is not available for the earlier years where returns had been filed. Mr. Chowdhary, relied on the case of CIT Vs. Smt. Meera Devi reported in (2012) 26 taxmann.com 132 (Delhi) in particular paragraph 21 therein which is set out below:- "21. The above extracts wou....

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....alcutta) being a judgment of a Division Bench of this court to which one of us was a party (Arindam Sinha, J.). He submitted, the said judgment was on identical issue decided in favour of the Revenue. He submitted that by order dated 15th May, 2015 the Supreme Court had dismissed the Special Leave Petition arising out of Prasanna Dugar (supra). Mr. Khaitan, learned Senior Advocate appearing on behalf of the assessee drew our attention to the finding in the order of CIT(A) which is reproduced below:- "I find that the income of Rs. 99 lakh, assessed u/s 143(3)/153C/153A for the Assessment Year under appeal, is wholly covered by the disclosure made u/s 132(4) of the I.T. Act for the Assessment year under appeal. Appellant had specified that....

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....e already filed. The difficulty arises by the use of the expression "to be furnished before the expiry of time specified in sub-Section (1) 139". A confusion is likely to arise as to whether the departure has been sought to be made by the legislature only for those cases where the statement as regards undisclosed income was made pertaining to a previous year for which time to file return under Section 139 had not expired. But that was not the intention because the expression "unless" appears after Clauses (a) and (b) of Explanation which provides for imposition of penalty. Therefore, 'unless' has to apply to the provision for imposition of penalty. Therefore, the aforesaid expression "to be furnished" has to be interpreted as "required to b....