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2008 (9) TMI 37

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....ectives paid a further amount of Rs.49.1429 per share for the delay in making the Open Offer. The payment of the said cost of acquisition of Rs. 271.0029 was made in foreign currency i.e. Sterling Pounds. The shares have been held by the applicant for more than 12 months. The shares of FIL are listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange. Cookson Plc. has accepted to buy 12,75,689 shares of FIL from the applicant at a price of Rs. 420 per share for a total consideration of Rs. 53.38 crores.  In respect of capital gain arising there from, the applicant seeks advance rulings on the following two questions : i. Whether, on the stated facts and in law, the tax payable on the long term capital gains arising on sale of eq....

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....), International Taxation, Mumbai, remained in force till 31.3.2008. The Commissioner points out that the applicant having waited till the expiry of the validity of the order, has filed the present application 3 days later. The Commissioner while pointing out that although technically, the applicant is not hit by the bar under section (2) of Section 245R, the question of obtaining advance ruling at this stage should not arise in view of the order passed under section 197 The Commissioner then refers to the decision of Income-tax Appellate Tribunal in the case reported in BASF Aktiengesellschaft v. Deputy Director of Income-Tax (International Taxation) [2007] 293 ITR (AT) 1 which this Authority referred to in Timken case [2007] ITR 513 (AAR)....

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.... entertaining and deciding this application, the Authority will be "subverting the ordinary process of judicial determination prescribed under the Act" and will be created 'judicial disarray'. 5. We do not find any merit in the strongly worded objection raised by the Commissioner for admitting this application under section 245R(2) of the Act. On the one hand, the Commissioner concedes that in "technical sense", the applicant is entitled to maintain this application, for the obvious reason that the applicant is eligible to apply for ruling and none of the embargos laid down in sub-section(2) of section 245R are attracted. If at all, the relevant clause of s. 245 R(2) is clause (i) which created a bar against the Authority entertaining the ....

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....ents of the Commissioner, it is clear that the assessing authority felt itself bound by the Income-Tax Appellant Tribunals decision in preference to the ruling of this Authority and, therefore, passed an order, that too an unreasoned order, under section 197 of the Income-Tax Act rejecting the applicant's submission. The applicant has a choice of either abiding by that order without prejudice to the further remedies open to it or challenging the same in proper proceedings. The applicant has chosen the former course and suffered tax deduction at 20 per cent (plus surcharge and cess) in accordance with the order under section 197. That order has lapsed. In order to avoid multiplicity of proceedings and prolonged uncertainty in future, the app....

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....decline to entertain the application unless, for sure, the Authority toes the same line as that set by the Tribunal; otherwise, the Authority will be created a 'judicial disarray' or chaos. Such an attempt to belittle the role of this Authority in the statutory scheme of adjudication cannot be countenanced. Such argument has no sanction of law and has the potential of stifling the statutory remedies available to the eligible applicant. The remedial provisions, if at all, should be liberally construed so as to advance the remedy rather than scuttling it. So long as the applicant comes within the four corners of the statutory provision, there is no impropriety in resorting to a remedy conferred by law. It is not the case of the Commissioner t....