2019 (10) TMI 386
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....000 shares of Kailash Auto Finance Ltd. 3. Brief facts qua the issue are that the assessee filed his return of income on 28.03.2016, for assessment year 2015-16, declaring total income of Rs. 3,73,420/-. The return of income filed by the assessee was processed by the Department u/s 143(1) of the Act. Thereafter, the assessee's case was selected for scrutiny u/s 143(2) of the Act. During the assessment proceedings, the Assessing Officer noted that the assessee had purchased scrip of M/s Kailash Auto Finance Ltd. which were sold in the financial year 2014-15, having capital gain of Rs. 6,02,041/-. The assessee has taken the amount as exempt long term capital gain in his return of income for assessment year 2015-16 u/s 10(38) of the Act. The Assessing Officer asked the assessee why this long term capital gain should not be treated as bogus. In response, the assessee submitted the contract notes, bills, bank statements etc. However, the Assessing Officer rejected the contentions of the assessee and made the addition u/s 68 to the tune of Rs. 6,02,041/-. 4. Aggrieved by the order of the Assessing Officer, the assessee carried the matter in appeal before the ld. CIT(A) who has conf....
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....see before the Assessing Officer were not found by the Assessing Officer as false / untrue. In other words, the Assessing Officer failed to find any defect in the main documents submitted by the assessee(i.e the bank statement, contract notes, demat account, bills / invoices of the shares) therefore, the transaction done by the assessee is genuine, hence the addition should be deleted. On the other hand, ld DR for the Revenue, reiterated the stand taken by the assessing officer which we have already noted in our earlier para and the same is not being repeated for the sake of brevity. 6. We note that the scrip of M/s Kailash Auto Finance Ltd. is squarely covered by the judgment of Co-ordinate Bench of ITAT Kolkata in the case of Sanjib Kumar Patwari(HUF) in I.T.A. No.205/Kol/2018 for A.Y 2014-15 wherein it was held as follows: 12. We have heard both the parties and perused the material available on record. We note that the assessee is a regular investor in shares and has been investing in shares since past several years. The said fact is evident from the details given below: Financial year Assessment year Balance Sheet Details of Investment in shares No. o....
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....sessee nor any opportunity of cross examination of the party was allowed to the assessee. Further, the AO did not brought any corroborative evidence on record to substantiate the contents of the statement relied on.We note that not allowing the assessee to cross examine the witness by the adjudicating authority though the statements of those witness were made the basis of the impugned order is a serious flaw which makes the order nullity. We note that same view expressed by the Hon`ble Calcutta High Court in the case of Eastern Commercial Enterprises 210 ITR 103 (Cal), wherein it was held that it is a trite law that cross examination is the sine qua non of due process of taking evidence and no adverse inference can be drawn against the party unless the party is put on notice of the case made out against him. Therefore, the addition made by the assessing officer based on thestatement of an alleged entry operator Sri Sunil Dokaniais not sustainable in law, as the assessing officer did not provide an opportunity to the assessee to cross examine the statement of Sri Sunil Dokania. 13. Now, coming to the merits of the assessee`s case, we note that ld Counsel for the assessee su....
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....name is at S.N. 154 (at page no. 80) read with para 7 of Page no. 83. (2) LIFELINE DRUG & PHARMA LTD. i) Copy of Allotment Advice dated 05.10.2012 reflecting the purchase of 20,000 shares of Lifeline Drugs & Pharma Ltd. (Paper Book Page No. 6) (Later, 20,000 shares of Rs. 10 each were split to 2,00,000 shares of Rs. 1 each) ii) Copy of Bank Statement reflecting the debit transaction of the amount of Rs. 12,00,000/- paid for the purchase of shares,by cheque no. 037632 on 01.10.2012 (Paper Book Page No. 8) iii) Copy of statement of DEMAT account evidencing the debit of shares of Lifeline Drugs & Pharma Ltd. on 01.07.2014, 08.07.2014, 11.07.2014, 15.07.2014, 21.07.2014 and so on; (Paper Book Page No. 66-67) iv) Copy of Contract Notes evidencing the sale of shares of Lifeline Drugs & Pharma Ltd.; v) Copy of bank statement reflecting the transactions of sale of shares of Lifeline Drugs & Pharma Ltd. (Paper Book page No. 59-61) (3) EINS EDUTCEHLTD. (Now Aplaya Creations Ltd.) i) Copy of purchase bill dated 10.08.2013, reflecting the purchase of 50,000 shares of EINS Edutech Ltd. from Neptune Financial Advisory Pvt. L....
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....hich is given below: (i) The assessee is a regular investor in shares and securities as evident from past assessment records. (ii) The shares were purchased and sold through a Registered Broker named "Eureka Stock & Share Broking Services Ltd." in the Stock Exchange. (iii) The shares were purchased and sold based on the prevailing market condition. (iv) The purchase and sale of shares are supported by contract notes. The payments were received through proper banking channel. (v) The purchase and sale transactions were subjected to Security Transaction Tax, Service Tax, Brokerage charges and Stamp duty. (vi) The share purchase and sale transactions are reflected in the D-mat account. (vii) The purchase of shares (Investments) was not disputed in earlier year, where assessment is completed u/s. 143(3) of the Income Tax Act. (viii) These facts are verifiable from the regular books of accounts. (ix) The transactions can also be verified from the Stock Exchange. (x) The SEBI has cleared these shares and scrips from the allegation of Market Rigging. Hence, the genuineness of the transaction....
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....proceedings, the assessee has submitted all the details and documents that were necessary for allowing the claim of the assessee. In the assessment order u/s. 143(3), Ld. AO has stated that there was inflow of some information from the Investigation wing alleging that the assessee was involved in selling of so called "penny stock". In this regard it was submitted by the assessee before the assessing officer as follows: i) The assessee is a regular investor in shares and securities as evident from past assessment records. ii) The shares were purchased and sold through a Registered Broker named "Eureka Stock & Share Broking Services Ltd." in the Stock Exchange. iii) The shares were purchased and sold based on the prevailing market condition. iv) The purchase and sale of shares are supported by contract notes. The payments were received through proper banking channel. v) The purchase and sale transactions were subjected to Security Transaction Tax, Service Tax, Brokerage charges and Stamp duty. vi) The share purchase and sale transactions are reflected in the d-mat account. vii) The purchase of shares (Investments) was not....
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....e Calcutta High Court in the case of Eastern Commercial Enterprises 210 ITR 103 (Cal), wherein it was held that it is a trite law that cross examination is the sine qua non of due process of taking evidence and no adverse inference can be drawn against the party unless the party is put on notice of the case made out against him. We note that the fact that neither the statement relied on bythe authorities below were provided to the assessee nor any cross examination was allowed to prove the veracity of the statement. We note that the fact that in the statement of third party, the name of the assessee was not implicated. Even otherwise, according to Learned Counsel, no adverse inference could be drawn against the assessee on the basis of untested statements without allowing opportunity of cross-examination. For that we rely on the following judgements in support of the aforesaid view:- (i) Andman Timber Industries vs. CCE - [2015] 62 taxmann.com 3 (SC) (ii) ITO vs. Ashok Kumar Bansal - ITA No. 289/Agr/2009 (Agra ITAT) (iii) ACIT vs. Amita Agarwal & Others - ITA No. 247/(Kol) of 2011 (Kol ITAT) (iv) ITO vs. BijayaGanguly- ITA Nos. 624 & 625....
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....ities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992 read with Sections 11, 11(4) and 11B of the SEBI Act, hereby revoke the interim order dated March 29, 2016 and confirmatory orders dated June 15, 2016, September 30,2016, October 21,2016, October 27,2016 and July 13, 2017 qua aforesaid 244 entities (paragraph 5 above) with immediate effect. The revocation of the directions issued vide the above mentioned orders (at paragraph 7) is only in respect of the entities mentioned at paragraph 5 of this order in the matter of Kailash Auto. As regards remaining entities in the scrip of Kailash Auto, violations under SEBI Act, PFUTP Regulations, etc., were observed and SEBI shall continue its proceedings against them. Hence, the directions issued vide confirmatory order dated June 15, 2016 against the remaining 2 entities shall continue. This revocation order is without prejudice to any other action SEBI may initiate as per law." We note that in the above order of the SEBI, the name of the assessee is also mentioned in the serial no. 154. Therefore, the SEBI itself has freed the assessee from market rigging allegation and thus the assessee is proved to be a bona-fide investor not i....
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.... of legal evidence. Reference was made to the judgement of Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Lalchand Bhagat Ambica Ram vs. CIT (1959) 37ITR 288 (SC, Umacharan Shaw 37 ITR 271 and Omar Salay Mohamed Sait 37ITR 151. We note that the entire case of the revenue is based upon the presumption that the assessee has ploughed back his own unaccounted money in the form of bogus LTCG. However, this presumption or suspicion howsoever strong it may appear to be, but needs to be corroborated by some evidence to establish a link that the assessee had brought back his unaccounted income in the form of LTCG. 20. We note that since the purchase and sale transactions are supported and evidenced by Bills, Contract Notes, Demat statements and bank statements etc., and when the transactions of purchase of shares were accepted by the ld AO in earlier years, the same could not be treated as bogus simply on the basis of some reports of the Investigation Wing and/or the orders of SEBI and/or the statements of third parties. In support of the aforesaid submissions, the ld Counsel, in addition to the aforesaid judgements, has referred to and relied on the following cases:- (i) Baijnath A....
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....t cannot decide on the basis of suspicion. It has to act on legal grounds established by evidence. The ld AR submitted that similar view has been taken in the following judgments while deciding the issue relating to exemption claimed by the assessee on LTCG on alleged Penny Socks. (i) ITO vs. Ashok Kumar Bansal - ITA No. 289/Agr/2009 (Agra ITAT) (ii) ACIT vs. J. C. Agarwal HUF - ITA No. 32/Agr/2007 (Agra ITAT) 22. Moreover it was submitted before us by ld Counsel that the AO was not justified in taking an adverse view against the assessee on the ground of abnormal price rise of the shares and alleging price rigging. It was submitted that there is no allegation in orders of SEBI and/or the enquiry report of the Investigation Wing to the effect that the assessee, the Companies dealt in and/or his broker was a party to the price rigging or manipulation of price in BSE/CSE. The ld AR referred to the following judgments in support of this contention wherein under similar facts of the case it was held that the AO was not justified in refusing to allow the benefit under section 10(38) of the Act and to assess the sale proceeds of shares as undisclosed income of ....
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....the transactions were as per norms and suffered STT, brokerage, service tax, and cess. There is no iota of evidence over the transactions as it were reflected in demat account. The appeal filed by the revenue was dismissed. (ii) CIT V. Rungta Properties Private Limited [ITA No. 105 of 2016] (Cal- HC) In this case the Hon'ble Calcutta High Court affirmed the decision of this tribunal, wherein, the tribunal allowed the appeal of the assessee where the ld AO did not accept the explanation of the assesseein respect of his transactions in alleged penny stocks. The Tribunal found that the ld AO disallowed the loss on trading of penny stock on the basis of some information received by him. However, it was also found that the ld AO did not doubt the genuineness of the documents submitted by the assessee. The Tribunal held that the ld AO's conclusions are merely based on the information received by him. The appeal filed by the revenue was dismissed. (iii) CIT V. Andaman Timbers Industries Ltd [ITA No. 721of 2008] (Cal-HC) In this case the Hon'ble Calcutta High Court affirmed the decision of this Tribunal wherein the loss suffered by the Assessee was allow....
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....eard both the side and perused the materials available on record. The ld. AR submitted two papers books. First book is running in pages no. 1 to 88 and 2nd paper book is running in pages 1 to 34. Before us the ld. AR submitted that the order of the AO is silent about the date from which the broker was expelled. There is no law that the off market transactions should be informed to stock exchange. All the transactions are duly recorded in the accounts of both the parties and supported with the account payee cheques. The ld. AR has also submitted the IT return, ledger copy, letter to AO and PAN of the broker in support of his claim which is placed at pages 72 to 75 of the paper book. The ld. AR produced the purchase & sale contracts notes which are placed on pages 28 to 69 of the paper book. The purchase and sales registers were also submitted in the form of the paper book which is placed at pages 76 to 87. The Board resolution passed by the company for the transactions in commodity was placed at page 88 of the paper book. On the other hand, the ld. DR relied in the order of the lower authorities. 4.1 From the aforesaid discussion we find that the assessee has incur....
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....the same has to be given due effect. Judicial discipline demands that once an order has been passed in the assessee's own case, by the Jurisdictional High court, the Tribunal is duty bound to act in accordance with the same. We note that in the case of Union of India v. Raghubir Singh (1989) 178 ITR 548 (SC), the Supreme Court held that the doctrine of binding precedent has merit of promoting certainty and consistency in judicial decisions. As per the doctrine of precedent, all lower Courts, Tribunals and authorities exercising judicial or quasi-judicial functions are bound by the decisions of the High Court within whose territorial jurisdiction these Courts, Tribunals &authorities functions. Therefore, respectfully following the judgments of the Jurisdictional, Hon`ble High Court of Calcutta, on similar and identical facts, the addition made by assessing officer should be deleted. 25. We note that when the transactions were as per norms prescribed by SEBI and concerned stock exchange and suffered STT, brokerage, service tax, and cess. There is no iota of evidence over the transactions as it were reflected in demat account. AO did not doubt the genuineness of the ....
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.... (xxxv) GaneshmullBijay Singh Baid HUF vs. DCIT - ITA Nos. 544/Kol/2013 (Kolkata ITAT) (xxxvi) Meena Devi Gupta & Others vs. ACIT - ITA Nos. 4512 & 4513/Ahd/2007 (Ahmedabad ITAT) (xxxvii) Manish Kumar Baid ITA 1236/Kol/2017 (Kolkata ITAT) (xxxviii) Mahendra Kumar Baid ITA 1237/Kol/2017 (Kolkata ITAT) 29. The ld AR also brought to our notice that once the assessee has furnished all evidences in support of the genuineness of the transactions, the onus to disprove the same is on revenue. He referred to the judgement of Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Krishnanand Agnihotri vs. The State of Madhya Pradesh [1977] 1 SCC 816 (SC). In this case the Hon'ble Apex Court held that the burden of showing that a particular transaction is benami and the appellant owner is not the real owner always rests on the person asserting it to be so and the burden has to be strictly discharged by adducing evidence of a definite character which would directly prove the fact of benami or establish circumstances unerringly and reasonably raising inference of that fact. The Hon'ble Apex Court further held that it is not enough to show circumstances which might crea....
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....n that in the decision relied upon by the ld. DR, the dispute was whether the profit earned on sale of shares was capital gains or business profit. 32.It is clear from the above that the facts of the case of the assessee are identical with the facts in the cases wherein the co-ordinate bench of the Tribunal has deleted the addition and allowed the claim of LTCG on sale of shares of M/s KAFL. We, therefore, respectfully following the same, and set aside the order of Ld. CIT(A) and direct the AO not to treat the long term capital as bogus and delete the consequential addition." (ii) Jagmohan Agarwal Vs. ACIT, ITA No.604/Kol/2018, order dated 05.09.2018. "35.In the light of the documents stated in para 30 at Page14(supra) we find that there is absolutely no adverse material to implicate the assessee to the entire gamut of unfounded/unwarranted allegations leveled by the AO against the assessee, which in our considered opinion has no legs to stand and therefore has to fall. We take note that the ld. DR could not controvert the facts which are supported with material evidences furnished by the assessee which are on record and could only rely on the orders of t....
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....on. The ld. DR could not bring to our notice any case laws to support the impugned decision of the ld. CIT(A)/AO. In the aforesaid facts and circumstances of the case, we hold that the ld. CIT(A) was not justified in upholding the addition of sale proceeds of the shares as undisclosed income of the assessee u/s 68 of the Act. We therefore direct the AO to delete the addition." (iii). Navneet Agarwal, ITA No.2281/Kol/ 2017, order dated 05.09.2018 "The assessee in this case had stated that the assessee was allotted of 50000 equity shares of SCITIL. The payment for the allotment of shares was made through an account payee cheque (copy of the bank statement evidencing the source of money). Annual return no. 20B was filed with Registrar of companies by SCITIL showing the assessee's name as shareholder. The assessee lodged the said shares with the Depository ESSBSL with a Demat request. The said shares were dematerialized and copy of demat request slip along with the transaction statement is placed on record. Later on, the High Court approved the scheme of amalgamation of SCITIL with CSL. In accordance with the said scheme of amalgamation, the assessee was allotted ....
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.... Evidence gathered by the Director Investigation's office by way of statements recorded etc. has to also be brought on record in each case, when such a statement, evidence etc. is relied upon by the revenue to make any additions. Opportunity of cross examination has to be provided to the assessee, if the Assessing Officer relies on any statements or third party as evidence to make an addition. If any material or evidence was sought to be relied upon by the Assessing Officer, he has to confront the assessee with such material. The claim of the assessee cannot be rejected based on mere conjectures unverified by evidence under the pretentious garb of preponderance of human probabilities and theory of human behaviour by the department. It is well settled that evidence collected from third parties cannot be used against an assessee unless this evidence is put before him and he is given an opportunity to controvert the evidence. In this case, the Assessing Officer relied only on a report as the basis for the addition. The evidence based on which the DDIT report was prepared is not brought on record by the Assessing Officer nor is it put before the assessee. The submission of....
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....t to the assessment wing to assess the income as per law. No such action executed by investigation wing against the assessee. In absence of any finding specifically against the assessee in the investigation wing report, the assessee cannot be held to be guilty or linked to the wrong acts of the persons investigated. In this case, the Assessing Officer at best could have considered the investigation report as a starting point of investigation. The report only informed the Assessing Officer that some persons may have misused the script for the purpose of collusive transaction. The Assessing Officer was duty bound to make inquiry from all concerned parties relating to the transaction and then to collect evidences that the transaction entered into by the assessee was also a collusive transaction. However, the Assessing Officer has not brought on record any evidence to prove that the transactions entered by the assessee which are otherwise supported by proper third party documents are collusive transactions. The Assessing Officer having failed to bring on record any material to prove that the transaction of the assessee was a collusive transaction could not have rejected the ev....
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....ions were subjected to Security Transaction Tax (STT), Service Tax, Brokerage charges and Stamp duty. The share purchase and sale transactions are reflected in the DMAT account. The purchase of shares (Investments) was not disputed in earlier year, where assessment is completed u/s. 143(3) of the Income Tax Act. These facts are verifiable from the regular books of accounts. The transactions can also be verified from the Stock Exchange.It is clear from the above that the facts of the case of the assessee are identical with the facts in the cases wherein the co-ordinate benches of this Tribunal has deleted the addition and allowed the claim of LTCG. The assessee`s case is also covered by the various judgments of Jurisdictional High Court of Calcutta, as noted (Supra). We, therefore, respectfully following the same, set aside the order of Ld. CIT(A) and direct the AO not to treat the long term capital as bogus and hence we delete the addition of Rs. 7,12,89,467/-. 27. The next issue in ITA No.205/Kol/2018, for A.Y. 2014-15 is in relation to confirming the addition of Rs. 57,02,785/- as unexplained expenditure towards commission charges of sale of such shares by the operator. ....
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....0,50,000 Purchased Off Market Lifeline Drugs & Pharma Ltd. Through Private Placement made by the company 14,700 10.08.2013 2,35,200 Neptune Off Market EINS Edutech Ltd. Details of Sale of Investments: Financial Advisory Pvt. Ltd. (50,000 shares) Name of No. of Date the Shares Sales of Amount Sales Company Sold of Name of Broker Name of Paid Stock Through Exchange Kailash Auto 7,34,000 Various 2,35,57,282/- Eureka Bombay Banking dates as per Finance Ltd. Stock & Stock Channel Table-C Lifeline Drugs & Pharma Ltd. 1,76,000 Various 4,39,13,859/- Share Exchange dates as per Broking Table-C 14,700 Various 58,37,526/- Services EINS Edutech Ltd. dates as per Ltd. Table-C Document 2 Table-C: Particulars No. of Date of Amount Date of Amount of LTCG Shares Purchase of Sale Sale Purchase z Kailash Auto 25000 09-10-2012 25,000 07-04-2014 10,21,587 9,96,587 Kailash Auto 25000 09-10-2012 25,000 09-04-2014 10,63,757 10,38,757 Kail....
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