TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2009 (5) TMI 38
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.... M/s Alstonia Township (P) Ltd. PAN AAECA4455A ITO Ward 1(3), New Delhi ACIT,Central Circle, Meerut 2 Shri Ashwani Talwar PAN AAAPT0920E DCIT, Circle 2(1), New Delhi ACIT, Central Circle, Meerut 3 Shri Anil Kumar Saha PAN AMYPS1829D DCIT, Circle 2(1), New Delhi ACIT, Central Circle, Meerut 4 Shri Geetambar Anand PAN ACHPA0868K DCIT, Circle 2(1), New Delhi ACIT, Central Circle, Meerut 5 M/s ATS Infrastructure Ltd. PAN AADCA0809D DCIT, Circle 2(1), New Delhi ACIT, Central Circle, Meerut 6 M/s ATS Promoters & Builders (P) Ltd. PAN AABCA4298C ITO Ward 2(2), New Delhi ACIT, Central Circle, Meerut 7 M/s ATS Construction & Maintenance (P) Ltd. PAN AACCS0562Q ITO Ward 2(2), New Delhi ACIT, Central Circle, Meerut 2. Earlier, seven Writ Petitions had been filed on 5.12.2008 challenging the impugned letter dated 7.10.2008 which had earlier transferred the subject cases in the same manner as has been done in the impugned decision dated 1.4.2009. The springboard for this action was the notice issued by the Commissioner of Income-tax, Delhi-I, New Delhi by Communication dated 30.9.2008 which reads t....
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....ed Office of the Company is in Delhi and the entire Group is being assessed in Delhi since its inception; (c) the Respondent's Directors reside either in Delhi or Noida only. No establishment/operations of the Group of whatsoever nature exist in Meerut and (d) that the higher Departmental Authorities are located in Ghaziabad, Kanpur and Lucknow, apart from Delhi. 5. We have already reproduced the copy of the Show Cause Notice dated 30.9.2008, stating the reasons for the proposed transfer of cases to Meerut, which referred to the intimate connection between the Group necessitating that the cases be centralized with the Assessing Officer handling other cases of the Group. Mr. C.S. Aggarwal, learned Senior Counsel for the Petitioner, has vehemently argued that since the ATS Group has no establishments and operations in Meerut and more specifically that no Assessing Officer at Meerut was handling any other cases of the Group, the entire action was liable to be struck down. It seems to us that this argument could have been taken in the writ petitions previously filed on behalf of the Group. Avowedly, no fresh notice has been issued and the Respondents have relied on this very Notice.....
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.... articulated, and which remain only in the mind of the decision making Authority. However, there are exceptions to this dogma of natural justice which is in effect but an obverse facet thereof. The exception is that if it is palpably clear that points which had not been initially penned down in the Notice were subsequently conveyed by the concerned authority, who was given adequate opportunity and facility to respond thereto, the dictates of natural justice would have been adequately complied with. This is what we find has happened in the case in hand, as is evident from the gamut of Objections taken by the Chartered Accountants of the Petitioners in their letter dated 30.3.2009. The impugned Order, which is in great detail, is not predicated on any points which are foreign to the said response dated 30.3.2009 of the Charted Accountants of the Petitioners. Stated differently, no prejudice, whatsoever, has been caused to the Petitioners for the failure to spell out in the said Show Cause Notice all the considerations for ordering the transfer of the cases. Since a hearing on the entire spectrum of the points touching upon the reasons for the consolidation and transfer of the cases h....
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....d that the ATS Group has no office or operations in Meerut. Mr. Aggarwal has also contended that if the assessments are to be transferred out of New Delhi the Petitioners would have no objection if the said cases of the Group are transferred to Ghaziabad since that would cause least insignifcant inconvenience to them. The point which has become central, therefore, is whether the Petitioners' convenience is a preeminent consideration or whether the Revenue is free, without any restraints, on the choice of where the transfer of cases after consolidation proceedings is to be directed. 9. In Pannallal Binjraj vs. UOI, [1957] 31 ITR 565(SC) the Constitution Bench had repulsed a siege laid to the vires of Section 5 of the Indian Income Tax Act, 1922. The Assessee had one of its branches in Calcutta where the Karta of the HUF resided and carried on business. The HUF, however, was being assessed at Patna but the cases were transferred to Calcutta and subsequently to Circle-VI, New Delhi. Their Lordships observed thus:- "Prima facie it would appear that an assessee is entitled under those provisions to be assessed by the Income-tax Officer of the particular area where he resides....
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....also keeping in perspective the fact that other cases of assessee pertaining to the same group were also transferred to Meerut. Another Division Bench of this Court in K.K. Loomba vs. CIT, [2000] 241 ITR 152 applied Bidi Supply Co. vs. UOI, [1956] 29 ITR 717(SC) and Pannalal Binjraj to reject the challenge to the transfer of cases from Amritsar to Delhi. In K.P. Mohammed Salim vs. CIT, [2008] 300 ITR 302 their Lordships have clarified that the "power of transfer in effect provides for a machinery provision. It must be given full effect. It must be construed in any manner so as to make it workable. Even Section 127 of the Act is the machinery provision. It should be construed to effectuate a charging section so as to allow the authorities concerned to do so in a manner wherefor the statute was enacted". 11. In this conspectus and analysis of the law it will be relevant to note that - firstly there is no fundamental right of an assesse to be assessed at a particular place. Under Section 124 the assessment must be carried out at the principal place of business but when powers under Section 127 are invoked, territorial nexus becomes irrelevant. Secondly, the determination of the ven....