2023 (3) TMI 673

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.....7,19,24,790/-. 3. The Assessing Officer (AO) carried out a limited scrutiny under the Computer Aided Scrutiny Selection (CASS). Consequently, a statutory notice under Section 143(2) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 [in short, "Act"] was issued on 11.04.2016, which was followed by another notice dated 27.09.2016. 4. The record also shows, that on 18.01.2017, a notice under Section 142(1) of the Act was issued, to which a questionnaire was appended. 5. The record shows that in response to these notices, the respondent/assessee furnished the details sought by the Assessing Officer (AO). 6. The AO, having satisfied himself with regard to the various queries raised by him, framed an assessment order under Section 143(3) of the Act on 12.....

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....essment order u/s 143(3) of the Act passed by the A.O. on 12.10.2017 is set aside with a specific direction to make the assessment afresh after taking into the facts mentioned above and after allowing opportunity to the assessee of being heard..." 11. Being aggrieved, the respondent/assessee carried the matter in appeal to the Tribunal. 12. The Tribunal, via the impugned order dated 30.11.2021 set aside the order passed by the PCIT. 13. Mr Puneet Rai, learned standing counsel, who appears on behalf of the appellant/revenue, says that the PCIT exercised his powers, in accordance with the law. 13.1 It is Mr Rai's contention, that the PCIT took into account, the scope and ambit of the power available to him under Section 263 of the....

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....the total contract value, whereas in the preceding year, the expenses incurred were in the range of 8.61%. 19. We have heard the counsel for the parties at some length, and also perused the record. 20. According to us, what clearly emerges from the record is as follows: (i) One, limited scrutiny under CASS was conducted. (ii) Two, queries were raised by the AO concerning job work charges. (iii) Three, ultimately, the entire focus of the PCIT was on job work charges, although five heads had been taken up initially for examination. (iv) Four, towards job work charges, the respondent had claimed as expenses, Rs.10.87 cr. 21. Given these broad facts, the Tribunal examined the issue at some length, be....

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....ifficult and also impractical especially when the assessment scrutiny proceedings started after the gap of 3 years. In the assessee's line of business such who is a main contractor having undertaken construction work at various places, has to get it executed through job workers who are kind of petty sub contactors who get the job work done through various labourers. The job work in the form of labour are done on the different locations and once the project is completed, the workers move out to different places or migrate back their homes and, therefore, it is impossible to get their current addresses so as to enable the Assessing Officer to issue notice under Section 133(6) of the Act, which actually would have been completely futile exerci....

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....for two reasons. 23.1 Firstly, this was the most pragmatic view, given the fact that in the construction industry, labourers do move from one worksite to another, quite frequently. 23.2 Secondly, and this is in our view a more important aspect, the job work was carried out in 2014-15, and therefore, to commence an inquiry after nearly three years would have not led to any fruitful results. 24. In our view, if the facts obtaining in the case are juxtaposed with the admitted fact, that the total value of contract receipts was Rs.141.89 crores, against which the expenses incurred towards job work was only Rs.10.87 crores, the absence of inquiry vis-a-vis job works would not render the assessment order passed by the AO, in these facts,....

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....in Commissioner of Income-tax vs. Ashok Logani (2011) 11 Taxman.com 208 (Delhi) was concerned with a situation, where in a search action conducted against the assessee, Rs.62,30,300/- was found at his residence. At that juncture, the assessee had offered for tax, out of the total amount recorded, Rs.61.30 lakhs as undisclosed income. However, when the return was filed for the period in issue, the same was not offered for tax. The AO overlooked this fact, and accepted the return filed by the assessee. It is in these circumstances, that the proceedings under Section 263 of the Act were initiated. 29. According to us, the facts in the said case are, as noted above, clearly distinguishable from those obtaining in the instant case. 30. Lik....