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2022 (1) TMI 938

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.... 02/03/2020. Hence, the due date for filing of appeal falls on 01/05/2020. We find that assessee has filed a delay condonation petition explaining the fact that due to Covid-19 pandemic, lockdown was imposed from 24/03/2020 and by placing reliance on the Government of India of notification No.218979 dated 31/03/2020 in Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation of Certain Provisions) Ordinance 2020 (No.2 of 2020) dated 31/3/2020 as per Clause 3(1)(b) extending the time limit specified in Income Tax Act which falls during the period from 20th day of March 2020 to 29th June 2020 for the purpose of filing appeal, till 30/06/2020 or such other date as the Central Government by notification specify in this behalf. Subsequently, the Government vide Notification No.35/2020 dated 24/06/2020, has extended the said time limit up to 31/03/2021. In view of the same, we are inclined to condone the delay of 200 days in filing the appeal of the assessee. We hold that there is no delay in filing of appeal by the assessee. Accordingly, the appeal of the assessee is hereby admitted and taken up for adjudication. 3. We have heard rival submissions and perused the materials available on record. We find that....

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....Salaries of Rs. 4,46,69,433/- and Expenditure on objects of the Trust of Rs. 5.75 Crores and the same has been accepted as such without any verification. Except for the breakup of expenses, the AO has not obtained any other details or verified the expenses, even on test check basis. 3.2. Accordingly, the ld., PCIT sought to invoke his revisionary jurisdiction u/s.263 of the Act by issuing show-cause notice to the assessee as to why the order passed by the ld. AO be set aside. 3.3. We find that assessee had submitted before the ld. PCIT that several queries were raised by the ld. AO during the course of assessment proceedings and all the queries were duly replied by the assessee by filing the requisite details. The ld. AO after examination of those details together with the accounts of the assessee and after making necessary enquiries and after due application of mind had accepted the return of income of the assessee. Accordingly, primarily, invocation of revision jurisdiction u/s.263 of the Act was objected to by the assessee. It was pointed out that assessee had indeed furnished the details of corpus donations as well as non-corpus donations before the ld. AO together with the d....

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.... branchwise. Similarly, the assessee furnished the 'donations received from corporates' above Rs. 50,000/- containing the name of the donor, PAN and the amounts received branchwise. Similarly, the assessee had furnished partywise details of 'donations received through Delhi Branch (Marathon)' containing name of the donor, their PAN and the amount of donation. Similarly, the assessee furnished the details of 'donations received in various branches from various charitable organisations' containing name of the donor, public trust registration details, their PAN and amounts of donation. Similarly, assessee furnished the details of 'donations received in head office' containing the name of the donors, their PAN and amount of donation. Similarly, the assessee furnished the details of 'donation - support direct' containing name of the persons, their PAN and the amount of donations. In the said list, the donations less than Rs. 50,000/- itself amounted to Rs. 3,29,57,098/-, for which the details were not given as it ran into innumerable numbers. Accordingly, the assessee had furnished details of donors who had paid more than Rs. 50,000/- as called for by the ld. AO. Similarly, the assessee....

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....         2008-09 43,029,019.00 2009-10 43,029,119.00 Objects of the Trust Objects of the Trust NIL               2009-10 41,5170,057.0 2010-11 41,517,057.00 Objects of the Trust Objects of the Trust NIL               2010-11 40,999,043.00 2011-12 40,999,043.00 Objects of the Trust Objects of the Trust NIL               2011-12 38,500,000.00 2012-13 38,500,000.00 Objects of the Trust Objects of the Trust NIL               2012-13 27,000,000.00 2013-14 27,000,000.00 Objects of the Trust Objects of the Trust NIL               2013-14 26,175,000.00 2014-15 26,175,000.00 Objects of the Trust Objects of the Trust NIL viii) The assessee gave an audit report issued by the auditor in respect of foreign contributions received during the year by the assessee trust, its utilization thereon and the unutilised portion duly certifying that the assessee had maintained the accounts of the foreign contribution in the manner sp....

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.... be filed. From the aforesaid list, we could also find that some confirmations were indeed voluntarily filed by the assessee before the ld. AO. We find that the ld. AO had sought for details of donors in respect of donations above Rs. 50,000/- which was duly provided before him. Even the entire expenditure incurred on objectives of the trust totaling to Rs. 12,64,36,953/- which was mentioned in para 4C in page 3 of the order of the ld. PCIT were duly furnished by the assessee as stated in the aforesaid list before the ld. AO. In fact the aforesaid details were furnished by the assessee before the ld. AO in response to notice u/s.142(1) of the Act dated 04/01/2017 in the format called for by the ld. AO. While this is so, it could not be accepted that no enquiries were made by the ld. AO during the course of assessment proceedings. From the questionnaire dated 04/01/2017 which are enclosed in pages III to V of the paper book filed before us, we find that the ld. AO had asked as many as 21 questions to the assessee during the course of assessment proceedings. All these questions were duly replied by the assessee from time to time during the course of assessment proceedings. The said r....

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....ere either made by way of online transfer or by account payee cheque or account payee demand draft. In fact the ld. AR also drew our attention to pages 195 to 287 of the paper book (duly admitting that the same were not filed before the lower authorities) wherein, in pages 200-230 of the paper book, the entire brochures that are part and parcel of the annual report of the assessee trust are enclosed. In other words, the said documents enclosed in pages 200-230 of the paper book though not filed before the lower authorities, merely contained the profile and various activities carried out by the assessee trust together with photos thereon. These are nothing but appeal papers to be given to various philanthropists who could go through the activities carried out by the assessee and come forward to voluntarily make donations to the assessee trust. In any case, we find that the gross receipts of the assessee during the year under consideration was Rs. 11.16 Crores and total application of funds for objects of the trust including administration expenses were Rs. 13.56 Crores. Hence, it could be safely concluded that the total application of funds for charitable purposes are much more than....

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.... of PCIT vs. Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt. Ltd., in ITA No.705 of 2017 dated 05/09/2017. For the sake of convenience, the said order is reproduced hereunder:- 1. "The Revenue is in appeal against an order dated 12th January 2017 passed by Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (`ITAT') in ITA No. 2813/De1/2016 for the Assessment Year (`AY') 2011-12. 2. The short question urged by the Revenue is whether the ITAT was justified in setting aside the order of the Principal Commissioner of Income Tax (`PCIT') passed under Section 263 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (`Ace) setting aside the original assessment order dated 31st December 2013 passed by the Assessing Officer (`AO') under Section 143 (3) of the Act. 3. The background facts are that the Assessee is a Concessionaire of the Airport Metro Express Project of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (`DMRC') under a Build-Operate-Transfer (`BOT') Scheme. The Assessee had accepted the concession for a period of 30 years. During the AY in question, the Assessee claimed depreciation of Rs. 112,29,74,447/- on fixed assets of Rs. 1560,48,17,189/- at 50% of the eligible depreciation rates since, during the AY in question....

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....f the Act". The case of the Assessee was that such a Circular could not dictate to the AO how he should frame his assessment and, to the extent the Circular was prejudicial to the Assessee, its application would be beyond the scope and ambit of the powers conferred on the Board under Section 119 of the Act. 9. It is seen, in the order dated 30th March 2016, the PCIT has proceeded by setting out the contents of the SCN and the contents of the reply given by the Assessee. It appears that no inquiry, as such, was undertaken by the PCIT to come to the conclusion that the original assessment order was erroneous and prejudicial to the interests of the Revenue. 10. For the purposes of exercising jurisdiction under Section 263 of the Act, the conclusion that the order of the AO is erroneous and prejudicial to the interests of the Revenue has to be preceded by some minimal inquiry. In fact, if the PCIT is of the view that the AO did not undertake any inquiry, it becomes incumbent on the PCIT to conduct such inquiry. All that PCIT has done in the impugned order is to refer to the Circular of the CBDT and conclude that "in the case of the Assessee company, the AO was duty bound to calcula....

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.... rightly placed on the decision of the Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of CIT vs. Sunbeam Auto Ltd., reported in 332 ITR 167. 3.10. The ld. DR vehemently relied on the Explanation 2 to Section 263 of the Act which has been brought in the statute w.e.f. 01/06/2015 to support the action of the ld. PCIT. In this regard, we find that the ld. PCIT had not invoked Explanation 2 to Section 263 in his entire order passed u/s.263 of the Act. Despite this fact, for academic reasons, we proceed to address the arguments of the ld. DR in this regard. The said explanation does not confer unfettered powers to the ld. PCIT to assume jurisdiction u/s.263 of the Act to revise every order of the ld. AO to re-examine the orders already examined during the course of assessment proceedings. In this regard, we find that the Co-ordinate Bench of Mumbai Tribunal had dealt the very same explanation in detail in the case of Narayan Tatu Rane vs. ITO reported in 70 Taxmann.com 227, wherein it was held that the said explanation cannot be said to have over-ridden the law as interpretated by the Hon'ble Delhi High Court, according to which, the Commissioner has to conduct an enquiry and verification to est....