2018 (4) TMI 1839
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....ssee. 3. The assessee craves your indulgence to add, amend or alter all or any grounds of appeal before or at the time of hearing. 2. The only issue arises in this appeal of the assessee is regarding long term capital gain on sale of shares and claimed as exempt under section 10(38) of the Act was treated by the AO as undisclosed income of the assessee. The assessee is an individual and engaged in the business of trading of gems stone in the name and style of M/s. Tripti Gems. The assessee filed his return of income on 31st July, 2013 declaring total income of Rs. 5,92,500/-. The assessee has claimed long term capital gain of Rs. 48,14,686/- from the sale of shares of M/s. Paridhi Properties Ltd., amalgamated with M/s. Luminaire Technologies Ltd. The AO received information from the Investigation Wing, Kolkata that during the search conducted under section 132 of the IT Act at the premises of the broker in case of Anand Sharma, it was found that Shri Anand Sharma and his associates were indulged in providing accommodation entries and in the form of bogus long term capital gain in the shape of sale of shares. The AO further noted that during the course of survey on broki....
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.... with DP Stock Holding Corporation Ltd. (NSDL). A copy of the demat account is placed at pages 7 & 8 of the paper book. The ld. A/R has submitted that in the meantime M/s. Paridhi Properties Ltd. amalgamated with M/s. Luminaire Technologies Ltd. vide order dated 27th July, 2012 of Hon'ble Bombay High Court approving the scheme of amalgamation. After the amalgamation, the assessee was allotted 100,000 shares of M/s. Luminaire Technologies Ltd. in lieu of the shares of M/s. Paridhi Properties Ltd. These shares were duly credited in the demat account of the assessee. Later on, the assessee sold 90,000 shares on 31st December, 2012 and 10,000 shares on 24th January, 2013 through SHCIL Services Ltd. The ld. A/R has referred to the Contract Note received from NSDL for sale of shares for a total sum of Rs. 49,14,686/- at pages 9 to 11 of the paper book. Thus the ld. A/R has submitted that the sale of shares in question were from the demat account of the assessee and, therefore, the transaction of sale cannot be treated as bogus when the assessee was holding the shares in the demat account. Since the shares were transferred after more than one year from the date of acquisition, therefore, ....
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..../- through cheque and the payment is duly reflected in the bank account of the assessee at page 4 of the paper book showing clearance of cheque of Rs. 100,000/- on 7th March, 2011. The assessee has also placed a copy of the allotment advice dated 21st March, 2011 whereby the company has allotted 10,000 shares giving the portfolio number and certificate number. The share certificate dated 19th March, 2011 is also placed in the paper book at page 6. The shares of M/s. Paridhi Properties Ltd. were dematerialized and credited to the demat account of the assessee as per the transaction statement issued by NSDL. In the meantime, M/s. Paridhi Properties Ltd. was amalgamated with M/s. Luminaire Technologies Ltd. vide decision dated 27th July, 2012 of Hon'ble Bombay High Court and consequently the assessee was allotted 100,000 shares of M/s. Luminaire Technologies Ltd. in lieu of 10,000 shares of M/s. Paridhi Properties Ltd. The shares of M/s. Luminaire Technologies Ltd. were subsequently credited to the demat account of the assessee duly reflected in the copy of the demat account as on 20th October, 2012. The AO has doubted the transaction on the basis of the report of the Investigation Wi....
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....hares. However, subsequently the facts came on record that the appellant had transacted not only in the shares which are disputed but shares of various other companies like Satyam Computers, HCL, IPCL, BPCL and Tata Tea etc. Regarding the transactions in question various details like copy of contract note regarding purchase and sale of shares of Limtex and Konark Commerce & Ind. Ltd., assessee's account with P.K. Agarwal & co. share broker, company's master details from registrar of companies, Kolkata were filed. Copy of depository a/c or demat account with Alankrit Assignment Ltd., a subsidiary of NSDL was also filed which shows that the transactions were made through demat a/c. When the relevant documents are available the fact of transactions entered into cannot be denied simply on the ground that in his statement the appellant denied having made any transactions in shares. The payments and receipts are made through a/c payee cheques and the transactions are routed through Kolkata Stock Exchange. There is no evidence that the cash has gone back in appellants's account. Prima facie the transaction which are supported by documents appear to be genuine transactions. The....
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....368/JP/2017 as well as in the case of Shri Meghraj Singh Shekhawat vs. DCIT vide order dated 7th March, 2018 in ITA No. 443 & 444/JP/2017 in paras 5 & 6 as under :- "5. We have considered the rival submissions as well as relevant material on record. The assessee has produced record of allotment of 3,50,000 equity shares of M/s Rutron International Ltd. under preferential issue at par of face value of Rs. 10/- each vide allotment letter dated 08.03.2012. The Assessing Officer has not disputed the genuineness of the letter of allotment issued by the company to the assessee wherein it has been communicated that the assessee has been allotted 3,50,000 equity shares vide allotment letter dated 08.03.2012 against the application of the assessee at par of face value of Rs. 10/- each without any premium. The assessee has also produced the bank statement showing the payment of consideration of the acquisition of shares on 29.02.2012. It appears that the said payment was made by the assessee at the time of applying for allotment of shares and subsequently the shares were allotted by the company on 01.03.2012. Thus, it is clear that the shares acquired by the assessee is not a tradin....
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....Broking Services Apart from the above mentioned companies neither I nor M/s Comfort Securities Ltd. has any business nexus with the companies mentioned supra. Q5. Do you know the promoters and directors of the above said companies? Whether M/s Comfort Securities Pvt. Ltd. or you have any association with the promoters and directors of the above said companies or have ever had any business transactions with the promoters and directors of the above said companies. Ans. Sir, I know some of the directors of the First Financial Services Limited, Splash Media & Infra Services Ltd, Rutron International Limited and FACT enterprise Ltd. Regarding other companies I am not aware who are the directors of these companies." Thus, it is clear from the relevant part of statement of Shri Anil Agrawal as reproduced by the AO that he has stated having business nexus with these companies and nature of business being consultancy services. Hence, he has not stated anything about providing bogus long term capital gain in respect of the equity shares of M/s Rutron International Ltd. A business nexus with any company will not automatically lead to the conclusion that the share....
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....roborative evidence or tangible material. 6. The assessee has specifically demanded the cross examined to Shri Anil Agrawal which was denied by the AO as under :- "(ii) The assessee's pleas that effective opportunity may be provided to cross examination. In this regard, it is pointed out that the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of C.Vasantlal & Co. v/s CIT 45 ITR 206 (SC) (3 Judge Bench) has observed that "the ITO is not bound by any technical rules of the law of evidence. It is open to him to collect material to facilitate assessment even by Private enquiry." Thus, in view of the decision of Hon'ble Supreme Court in case of CCE vs. Andaman Timber Industries (supra) the assessment based on statement without giving an opportunity is not sustainable in law. We further note that the assessee produced copy of affidavit of Shri Anil Agrawal who has retracted his statement before the Investigation Wing, Kolkata however, without going into controversy of the retraction of the statement we find that the statement cannot be used by the AO without giving an opportunity to cross examination of Shri Anil Agrawal. The Coordinate Bench of this Tribunal in case of Pramod Jain and....
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....Oasis Cine Communication Ltd. on 04.02.2012. Hence, the allotment of 35,200 equity shares of M/s Oasis Cine Communication Ltd. cannot be doubted or disputed as these shares were issued post amalgamation and by a listed company. It is also not in dispute that these shares of M/s Oasis Cine Communication Ltd. were issued in exchange of the shares held by the assessee of M/s Gravity Barter Ltd. Therefore, once the shares issued by M/s Oasis Cine Communication Ltd. cannot be doubted then the holding of the shares of the M/s Gravity Barter Ltd. by the assessee correspondingly cannot be doubted because of the reasons that the shares of M/s Oasis Cine Communication Ltd. could be allotted only in exchange of shares of M/s Gravity Barter Ltd. The holding the shares of M/s Gravity Barter Ltd. and the allotment of shares M/s Oasis Cine Communication Ltd. are directly interconnected. In the absence of holding of shares M/s Gravity Barter Ltd. the shares of the M/s Oasis Cine Communication Ltd. could not be issued or allotted to the assessee. Therefore, holding of the shares by the assessee at least at time of amalgamation took place and shares of the M/s Oasis Cine Communication Ltd. on 04.02.....
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....e on 26.03.2011 by paying share application money of Rs. 5 lacs which is duly reflected in the bank account of the assessee as paid on 28.03.2011. Therefore, the payment of share application money has been duly established by the assessee through his bank account for allotment of shares of 50,000 equity shares of M/s Paridhi Properties Ltd. The share allotted in private placement as per of Rs. 10/- cannot be termed as penny stock. The AO doubted that the entire process of application and allotment of shares as it have been completed within a short duration of 5 days, which in the opinion of the AO is not possible in ordinary course. However, when the assessee has produced the record including the share application, payment of share application money, allotment of share then merely because of a short period of time will not be a sufficient reason to hold that the transaction is bogus. The shares allotted to the assessee vide share certificate dated 31.03.2011 were dematerialized on 21.10.2011, therefore, on the date of dematerialization of the shares the holding of the shares of the assessee cannot be doubted and hence the acquisition of the shares of the assessee cannot be treated ....
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....ur good self has got the authority, we humbly request you to kindly issue the notice u/s 131 of the Income tax Act 1961 to the concerned individual persons or company officials for cross examination. Please note that the assessee is ready to bear the cost of their travelling in this regards. 4. As regard your opportunity given to us to read the recorded statement of Shri Deepak Patwari and to produce him from the cross examination before your good self, we have to submit that from the reading of the statements of Shri Deepak Patwari it is clear that he has never taken the name of the assessee, nor the assessee is aware of any Shri Deepak Patwari neither he has made any transaction with him, so in what capacity he can call him for cross examination before your good self. Since your good self has got the authority, we humbly request youto kindly issue the notice u/s 131 of the income Tax act 1961 to him also for cross examination. We also request your good self to kingly provide us the copy of statements of Shri Deepak Patwari along with the other relevant documents. Please note that the assessee is ready to bear the cost of his travelling in this regard." It is man....
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....e Tribunal has simply stated that crossexamination of the said dealers could not have brought out any material which would not be in possession of the appellant themselves to explain as to why their ex-factory prices remain static. It was not for the Tribunal to have guess work as to for what purposes the appellant wanted to cross-examine those dealers and what extraction the appellant wanted from them. 7. As mentioned above, the appellant had contested the truthfulness of the statements of these two witnesses and wanted to discredit their testimony for which purpose it wanted to avail the opportunity of cross-examination. That apart, the Adjudicating Authority simply relied upon the price list as maintained at the depot to determine the price for the purpose of levy of excise duty. Whether the goods were, in fact, sold to the said dealers/witnesses at the price which is mentioned in the price list itself could be the subject matter of cross-examination. Therefore, it was not for the Adjudicating Authority to presuppose as to what could be the subject matter of the crossexamination and make the remarks as mentioned above. We may also point out that on an earlier occasion w....
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....mpany, does not implicate that GTC as a corporate entity was having the control of these bank accounts completely. Without going into the authenticity and veracity of the statements of the witnesses Smt. Nirmala Sundaram, we are of the opinion that this one incident of donation through bank accounts at the direction of one of the employee of the Company does not implicate that the entire premium collected all throughout the country and deposited in Benami bank accounts actually belongs to the assessee-company or the assessee-company had direct control on these bank accounts. Ultimately, the entire case of the revenue hinges upon the presumption that assessee is bound to have some large share in so-called secret money in the form of premium and its circulation. However, this presumption or suspicion how strong it may appear to be true, but needs to be corroborated by some evidence to establish a link that GTC actually had some kind of a share in such secret money. It is quite a trite law that suspicion howsoever strong may be but cannot be the basis of addition except for some material evidence on record. The theory of 'preponderance of probability' is applied to weigh the e....
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....ground that in his statement the appellant denied having made any transactions in shares. The payments and receipts are made through a/c payee cheques and the transactions are routed through Kolkata Stock Exchange. There is no evidence that the cash has gone back in appellants's account. Prima facie the transaction which are supported by documents appear to be genuine transactions. The AO has discussed modus operandi in some sham transactions which were detected in the search case of B.C. Purohit Group. The AO has also stated in the assessment order itself while discussing the modus operandi that accommodation entries of long term capital gain were purchased as long term capital gain either was exempted from tax or was taxable at a lower rate. As the appellant's case is of short term capital gain, it does not exactly fall under that category of accommodation transactions. Further as per the report of DCIT, Central Circle-3 Sh. P.K. Agarwal was found to be an entry provider as stated by Sh. Pawan Purohit of B.C. Purihit and Co. group. The AR made submission before the AO that the fact was not correct as in the statement of Sh. Pawan Purohit there is no mention of Sh. P. K. A....
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....nce on the decision of Hon'ble Supreme Court in case of CCE vs. Andaman Timber Industries (supra) as well as the decision of Hon'ble jurisdiction High court in case of CIT vs. Smt. Pooja Agarwal (supra) as held that when the Assessing Officer has not brought any material on record to show that the assessee has paid over and above purchase consideration as claimed and evident from the bank account then, in the absence of any evidence it cannot be held that the assessee has introduced his own unaccounted money by way of bogus long term capital gain. Similarly in the case in hand the assessee has produced the relevant record to show the allotment of shares by the company on payment of consideration by cheque and therefore, it is not a case of payment of consideration by in cash. But the transaction is established from the evidence and record which cannot be manipulated as all the entries are part of the bank account of the assessee and the assessee dematerialized the shares in the D-mat account which is also an independent material and evidence cannot be manipulated. Therefore, the holding of the shares by the assessee cannot be doubted and the finding of the AO is based merely on the....
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