2007 (10) TMI 284

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..... "Whether, on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal was correct in holding that a sum of Rs. 9 lakhs sought to be written off by the assessee as a bad debt was in fact a business loss and liable to be treated as such. Filing of paper books is dispensed with ?" 4. The case of the assessee before the Assessing Officer, when asked to explain the writing off the sum of Rs. 9 lakhs as bad debts, was that one Shri Harmohan Dhawan had been inducted in the board of directors along with Shri Sabharwal. These two directors had on behalf of the assessee made a down payment of Rs. 9 lakhs to M/s. Kapoor Sons for purchase of a premises for the assessee at Okhla, New Delhi. However, later Shri Harmohan Dhaw....

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....he Tribunal appears to have accepted the submission, made for the first time by the assessee before it, that the sum advanced to M/s. Kapoor Sons was an advance rent and its non-return constituted a business loss. She further submits that when the assessee had itself taken the stand before the Assessing Officer that the sum was advanced to purchase a capital asset, the Tribunal could not have possibly treated the non-return of the money so advanced as a business loss. 9. Appearing for the assessee, Mr. Satyen Sethi, learned counsel did not dispute that the assessee indeed took the stand before the Assessing Officer that the money had been advanced for the purchase of capital asset. Nevertheless he submitted that the said stand was a mist....

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....d by the assessee, the amount could not be treated as a capital loss. We find that on the face of it, the impugned order of the Tribunal is contrary to the facts of the case. We are unable to countenance the submission of learned counsel for the assessee that what was stated by the assessee in the aforementioned letter was a mistake. No such plea was taken at any time earlier either before the Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals) or the Tribunal by the assessee. The case of the assessee before the Tribunal was that the sum was paid as advance rent which is totally unsupported by the evidence brought on record. We find that the conclusion arrived at by the Tribunal that the non-recovery of the said sum was a business loss is contrary to the ....