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2024 (2) TMI 332

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.... On the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Ld. CIT(A) erred in deleting the penalty of Rs. 8,98,85,000/- levied by the JCIT (Central), Indore, u/s 271D on account of violating the provisions of section 269SS of the Income-tax Act, 1961. 2) On the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Ld. CIT(A) erred in holding that the penalty was imposed on the basis of dumb documents despite the fact that the data on the said documents was duly corroborated as per the findings in the penalty order. ITA No. 794/Ind/2019 for A.Y. 2010-11 in the matter of Penalty u/s 271D: 1) On the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Ld. CIT(A) erred in deleting the penalty of Rs. 54,65,000/- levied by the JCIT (Central), Indore, u/s 271D on account of violating the provisions of section 269SS of the Income-tax Act, 1961. 2) On the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Ld. CIT(A) erred in holding that the penalty was imposed on the basis of dumb documents despite the fact that the data on the said documents was duly corroborated as per the findings in the penalty order. ITA No. 795/Ind/2019 for A.Y. 2011-12 in the matter of Penalty u/s 2....

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....15-16 in the matter of Penalty u/s 271D: 1) On the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Ld. CIT(A) erred in deleting the penalty of Rs. 55,00,000/- levied by the JCIT (Central), Indore, u/s 271D on account of violating the provisions of section 269SS of the Income-tax Act, 1961. 2) On the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Ld. CIT(A) erred in holding that the penalty was imposed on the basis of dumb documents despite the fact that the data on the said documents was duly corroborated as per the findings in the penalty order. ITA No. 800/Ind/2019 for A.Y. 2009-10 in the matter of Penalty u/s 271E: 1) On the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Ld. CIT(A) erred in deleting the penalty of Rs. 1,64,00,000/- levied by the JCIT (Central), Indore, u/s 271E on account of violating the provisions of section 269T of the Incometax Act, 1961. 2) On the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Ld. CIT(A) erred in holding that the penalty was imposed on the basis of dumb documents despite the fact that the data on the said documents was duly corroborated as per the findings in the penalty order. ITA No. 801/Ind/20....

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....order. ITA No. 805/Ind/2019 for A.Y. 2014-15 in the matter of Penalty u/s 271E: 1) On the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Ld. CIT(A) erred in deleting the penalty of Rs. 85,00,000/- levied by the JCIT (Central), Indore, u/s 271E on account of violating the provisions of section 269T of the Incometax Act, 1961. 2) On the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Ld. CIT(A) erred in holding that the penalty was imposed on the basis of dumb documents despite the fact that the data on the said documents was duly corroborated as per the findings in the penalty order. 2. Since these appeals arise from common order of lower-authorities and involve issues of common nature; they were heard together at the request of parties and are being disposed of by this common order for the sake of convenience and clarity. 3. The background facts leading to present appeals are such that the assessee is a company. A search u/s 132 of the Act was conducted in case of one "PATH Group" including assessee on 27.08.2014. Pursuant to search, the assessments of assessee were completed u/s 153A/143(3) for AY 2009- 10 to 2015-16. During search, the authorities seiz....

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....rom Laptop, (iii) BS- 4, and (iv) Statements of Shri G.C. Patidar were duly analysed by first appellate authority in quantum-appeals of assessee itself for AYs 2009-10 & 2010-11 and after due consideration, the first appellate authority did not favour the observations/inferences/conclusions drawn by assessing authority. Thereafter, the revenue went in next appeals to ITAT in IT(SS)A No. 32 & 33/Ind/2021 whereupon, vide order dated 13.12.2023, the ITAT, Indore Bench dismissed revenue's appeals and thus upheld the orders of first appellate authority. Furthermore, in the present appeals also, the first appellate authority i.e. CIT(A) has deleted the penalties imposed by JCIT on the basis of very same material. Since the present appeals being contested by revenue do not have any new material or fact, the impugned orders of CIT(A) deleting the penalties are in order and must be upheld having regard to the order passed by ITAT in IT(SS)A No. 32 & 33/Ind/2021 (supra). 5. The fourth document considered by JCIT is "Page 21-24 of LPS-1" seized from office of M/s Agroh Infrastructure Developers Pvt. Ltd. This document is a basis for penalties to the extent of Rs. 3,66,25,000/- u/s 271D and....

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.... the tally account in the name of XYZ 0809-2 taken from laptop. The details of the seized document are reproduced by the AO in assessment order in para 7 & 8 as under: 7.1 The AO then proceeded to conclude that the transactions in the tally account of XYZ 0809-2 are corroborated by the transactions recorded in the loose paper seized from the premises of Shri G.C. Patidar and held that the transactions to the tune of Rs.5,32,60,000/- are cash loan received by the assessee out of book for A.Y.2009-10 on which the AO has computed the interest expenses of Rs.82,03,684/-. Similarly for A.Y.2010-11 the AO taken loan of Rs.54,65,000/- and interest expenses of Rs.58,55,122/-. The details of these amounts have been given by the AO in para 11 as under: Name of Transaction Period Amount received Amount paid Loan availed by PATH FY 08-09 5,32,60,000 49,00,000 FY 09-10 54,65,000 2,55,10,000 Interest Expenses paid by PATH FY 08-09   82,03,684 FY 09-10   58,55,122 Cash transaction of PATH with directors & Relatives FY 08-09 2,85,25,021 5,52,49,940 FY 09-10 1,46,61,842 5,37,00,603 7.2....

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....by the assessee the documents relied upon by the AO itself do not reveal any payment of interest except the statement of Shri G.C. Patidar who has mentioned interest rate only and not the payment of interest during the year under consideration. We further note that the AO in para 13.3.5 rejected the contention of the assessee by considering the signature on the loose sheet on cutting and correction as signature of Shri Puneet Agrawal as under: "13.3.5 The contention of assessee is incorrect, important evidence seized from premise of Shri G.C Patidar is serial of 19 of page no.14 of LPS-1 seized from residence of Patidar it consist of signature of Shri Puneet Agrawal clearly meaning that he has approved the transactions." 7.3 This observation of the AO is contrary to the statement of Shri G.C. Patidar recorded u/s 132(4) of the Act and question no.31 and answer to the same are reproduced as page no.93 of the assessment year as under: 7.4 Thus, it is clear that Shri G.C. Patidar has stated in the statement that the signature on the loose sheet may be of Mr. NayazAhmmad from the office. Therefore, the observation of the AO is contrary to the record itself an....

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....AO as well as before me has stated that the entries in respect of laptop data which has been seized from the office of the company was used by one of its employee Mr. Nilesh Tawrech who was taking tally accounting training under Shri G.C. Patidar, who used to provide him hypothetical entries for learning purpose for that reason and for learning purpose name of the company was taken as 'XYZ'. The appellant has claimed not having any knowledge of company 'XYZ' which has also been stated by appellant during the course of assessment proceedings. The appellant after the search proceedings enquired from his staff member regarding the impugned printouts. Mr G.C. Patidar, who worked as an accountant usually comes to office and worked for others and uses the printer installed at the premises of the appellant, informed that he has opened this account on tally to train his junior Mr. Nilesh Tawrech and most of the figures are imaginary and few of the figures were copied from the data of appellant. The appellant in support has filed affidavit of Shri G.C. Patidar regarding the same. 4.2.3 After considering the entire factual matrix and evidence/material on record inter....

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....actions as mentioned in the seized printouts have been executed. The additions have been imposed on sheer presumption and assumption basis. Further, the AO did not even bother to carry out independent enquiries from the person whose names are mentioned on LPS-1 & LPS 8 which Was seized from the premises of G C Patidar. The trainee junior Nilesh Tawarech has untimely passed away. Therefore, it is impossible for the appellant to bring Shri Nilesh Tawarech in person for examination on oath. It is pertinent to mention that no incriminating material was found during search having sole direct nexus with any of the impuged cash loan transaction. Furthermore, neither the AO call any of the person whose names were mentioned on loose paper for examination nor any person whose name were mentioned on loose paper turned out to AO and has admitted that any such transaction has taken place. Therefore, in absence of any cogent evidence having direct nexus with the impugned transactions, the said impugned papers and tally data account cannot be used against the appellant. The AO has also alleged that some of the data is accounted and some of the data is unaccounted in books of accounts, however, ha....

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....id document only records some purported cash received and cash paid but nowhere the name of PATH is reflected. Even on second table at page 99, the name of PATH is not reflected therefore to attribute these transactions to PATH is fallacious. The said loose sheet was subject to varying interpretation in the year AY 2008-09 and is a nonspeaking/ dumb document. The director of Agroh cannot give any satisfactory reply during the statement recorded at the time of search however during the course of their assessment admitted that they have given loan to PATH. The statement of the Director wherein they admitted giving loan to PATH has not been provided nor the opportunity to cross examination was made available. It is important to mention that the buy-back of shares is duly accounted in audited books of account of appellant and the impugned loose papers were not found from premises of the appellant. Therefore, the AO is not justified in presuming buyback of shares as cash loan and interest on a loan was equally hypothetical. The statement given which has to be used against the assesse has to be confronted and opportunity to cross examine has to be provided, which squarely apply ....

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....e help of documentary evidence. The assessment order does not discuss any such attempt by the department to conclusively establish that the transaction whereby debtor creditor relationship has been created between the two parties. None of the parties from whom the loans are allegedly taken by Assessee Company in cash were examined for the truth of the happening of such transactions. If the alleged cash loans are taken by the assessee company is taken to be true on the fact of it, then there arises a corresponding liability of income tax on such undisclosed income in the hands of giver of the cash loan. In none of the cases, the reciprocity which is a fundamental necessity of existence of transaction was ever proved or attempted by the department. In two cases reopened by the Department of Mr. Anil Poddar and Mr. Raghunath Poddar of which the Assessee Company has been informed, the reason to believe that cash loans were advanced by those person to assessee company was found unsupported and therefore such doubt has no legs to stand upon. Thus, in entirety the seized loose paper and tally data is dumb document/data and does not reflect any exchange of money by/to appellant. 4....

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....ssible under s. 9 of the Evidence Act to support an inference about correctness of the entries still those entries would not be sufficient without supportive independent evidence. Rakesh Goyal Vs. ACIT (2004) 87 TTJ (Del) 151 - The findings of Hon'ble Tribunal was as under:- "20.1 After perusing the findings of the CIT(A) and the submissions of both the parties, we do not find any infirmity in these findings. Firstly the finding of the CIT(A) has not been controverted by the learned Departmental Representative by filing any positive evidence. The copies of the pages found from the possession of the assessee are placed in the paper book and after going through these papers, we find that these are simply deaf and dumb documents and they cannot be considered for making any addition. This is a settled principle of law that any document or entry recorded in those documents should be corroborated with positive evidence. Here in the present case nothing has been corroborated or proved that assessee was dealing in money lending business." Mohan Foods Ltd Vs. DCIT (2010) 123 ITD 590 (Del) - Held that-although the contents of the relevant seiz....

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....e Tribunal to this effect. Since the conclusions are essentially factual, no substantial question of law arises for consideration". Jayantilal Patel Vs. ACIT &Ors (1998) 233 ITR 588 (Raj) - Held that - "During search at the residence of Dr.Tomar, the Department official found a slip containing some figures. This piece of paper claimed to have been recovered at the time of search contains figures under two columns. In one column, the total of these figures comes to Rs. 17,25,000 from 31st May, 1989, to 8th Dec., 1989, and in the other column, the total of these figures comes to Rs, 22, 12,500. An addition of Rs. 22, 12,500 on the basis of figures on a small piece of paper in respect of purchase of Plot No. B-4, Govind Marg, Jaipur was made by the AO. This plot B-4, Govind Marg, Jaipur, has been purchased jointly by Dr.Tomar, Dr. Mrs. Tomar and B.S. Tomar, HUF. Held that no addition on account of entries on a piece of paperwhich is claimed to have been found at the time of search, can be made treating the figures as investment for purchase of plot No. B-4, Govind Marg, Jaipur in the hands of Dr.Tomar, Dr. Mrs. Tomar and B.S. Tomar HUF." NK Malhan V....

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....ditions made by Tribunal of assumed undeclared payments made for purchase of property was on basis of facts. Ashwani Kumar V. ITO (1991) 39 ITD 183 (Del) and Daya Chand V. CIT (2001) 250 ITR 327 (Del) and S.P. Goel V. DCIT (2002) 82 ITD 85 (Mum.): Nine out of 19 slips found were without any name or amount and therefore were dumb documents and no adverse inference could be drawn. Common Cause (A Registered Society) Vs. Union of India - 30 ITJ 197 (SC): In this case, the Hon'ble Court held that without any independent evidence or corroborative material, no addition is permissible on the basis of loose paper jottings ¬ings. The relevant paras of the order are as under :- 6. With respect to the kind of materials which have been placed on record, this Court in V.C. Shukla's case (supra) has dealt with the matter though at the stage of discharge when investigation had been completed but same is relevant for the purpose of decision of this case also. This Court has considered the entries in Jain Hawala diaries, note books and file containing loose sheets of papers not in the form of "Books of Accounts" and has held that such entries in loose....

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....ason being that a man cannot be allowed to make evidence for himself by what he chooses to write in his own books behind the back of the parties. There must be independent evidence of the transaction to which the entries relate and in absence of such evidence no relief can be given to the party who relies upon such entries to support his claim against another. In Hira Lal v. Ram Rakha the High Court, while negativing a contention that it having been proved that the books of account were regularly kept in the ordinary course of business and that, therefore, all entries therein should be considered to be relevant and to have been proved, said that the rule as laid down in Section 34 of the Act that entries in the books of account regularly kept in the course of business are relevant whenever they refer to a matter in which the Court has to enquire was subject to the salient proviso that such entries shall not alone be sufficient evidence to charge any person with liability. It is not, therefore, enough merely to prove that the books have been regularly kept in the course of business and the entries therein are correct. It is further incumbent upon the person relying upon those entrie....

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....at "that additions made on the basis of torn papers and loose sheets cannot be sustained as same do not indicate that any transaction ever took place and does not contain any information in relation to the nature and party to the transaction in question." (vi) Jagdamba Rice Mills Vs. ACIT (2000) 67 TTJ (Chd) 838 Held that "No addition can be made on dump documents". (vii) In the latest decision of the Hon'ble M.P. High Court, Indore Bench in the case of the PCIT-1 v/s Shri Pukhraj Soni (2019) 34 ITJ 489 (MP) has held as under; "On the basis of search re-assessment additions were made - Appeal allowed by CIT(A), which was confirmed by ITAT ITAT held that CIT(A) was justified in allowing the appeal as AO has done the addition on the basis of notings found in the books of third person - Revenue filed appeal against the order of ITAT - HELD - In the case of Common Cause (A Registered Society) v. Union of India, (2017) 30 ITJ 197 (SC). the Supreme Court held that incriminating materials in form of random sheets, loose papers, computer prints, hard disk and pen drive etc. and has held that that are inadmissible in evidence, as the....

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....e been expressed by Apex court in the case of Dhiraj Lal Girdharilal v/s CIT (1954) 26 ITR 736 (SC). 4.2.9 Despite the request of the Appellant, during the course of Assessment proceeding and also during the course of Penalty proceedings, the department despite having several weapons in its armory, like giving of summon, survey, search and seizure, reassessment, revision etc could not establish as to whether the alleged person from whom it is alleged that the appellant has taken huge loan in cash are really existing person or imaginary person. Nothing has been brought on record to suggest any enquiry has been conducted about the alleged lenders. No statement were recorded of the so called lenders by issuing summon, if there be any belief or doubt as to taking of loan in cash, if harbored by the department. Even if some statements were recorded they are not shared nor there was opportunity given to cross examine the person from whom it is alleged that Appellant has taken loan in cash. Further, the theory of huge cash loan being taken by Appellant, which has been built upon the loose sheet and laptop, a presumption u/s. 132 (4A) was available in the statute book but it has b....

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....e basis of document seized in the course of search carried out in the case of L and later L retracted his statement that said document belong to Assessee and moreover there were various internal inconsistencies and contradictions in document in question, impugned addition was to be set aside. In the case of CIT Vs. World wide Township Project Ltd (2014) 106 DTR Del 139 it was held that - A plain reading of the aforesaid Section indicates that (the import of the above provision is limited) it applies to a transaction where a deposit or a loan is accepted by an assessee, otherwise than by an account payee cheque or an account payee draft. The ambit of the Section is clearly restricted to transaction involving acceptance of money and not intended to affect cases where a debt or a liability arises on account of book entries. The object of the Section is to prevent transactions in currency. This is also clearly explicit from clause (iii) of the explanation to Section 269SS of the Act which defines loan or deposit to mean "loan or deposit of money". The liability recorded in the books of accounts by way of journal entries, i.e. crediting the account of a party to whom m....

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....e ingredient by way of prerequisite condition of 69 of the Act has to be satisfied and cannot be presumed to have been established on the basis of 132(4A) of the Act. Section 69 opens with the word "where any financial year immediately preceding the Assessment year, the Assessee has made investment ..." Therefore it was incumbent upon the authority to establish that such investment had been made in a financial year immediately preceding the assessment year in question. In the case in hand, despite presumption, the ingredient of default i.e. actually taking or repaying loan or interest payment or giving loan to directors in cash is to be established by the Authority, with necessary enquires conducted in the case of alleged lenders by summoning them, recording their evidence, giving cross examination to Appellant, exercising recourse to 153C or 147 to bring undisclosed income in the form of cash loan, which in our considered opinion, the authority failed to do. Therefore, Loan or Deposit of Money actually taken by appellant is to be established by independent and direct evidence and not with the help of Laptop data or jottings. The Burden is heavy on the person who allege, once the i....

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....ssed to income-tax. 20. In the obtaining factual matrix the seminal question is whether the said statement of Mohd Rashid could have been utilised against the assessee without calling him for cross-examination. It is of immense significance that Mohd. Rashid has filed an affidavit in variance of his original statement. That apart, the Assessing Officer has ignored the affidavit and ascribed reasons how the transaction with the said Mohd. Rashid was not worth giving credence. The genuineness of bills produced by the assessee has not been accepted exclusively on the basis that the said Mohd. Rashid was a small businessman and was not assessed to income-tax. The aforesaid circumstances eloquently speak that the addition in the order of assessment has been made on the basis of the statement made by Mohd. Rashid. There is no cavil that a prayer was made under Section 131 of the Act to summon the said Mohd. Rashid for cross-examination. That has not been done. The language employed under Section 131 of the Act empowers the Assessing Officer to ensure the attendance of any person. When the statement of Mohd. Rashid was used against the assessee and an affidavit was filed controve....

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....ax Act law are not governed by the strict rules of evidence and therefore, it may be said that even without calling the Manager of the bank in evidence to prove this letter, it could be taken into account as evidence. But before the Income Tax authorities could rely upon it, they were bound to produce it before the assessee so that the assessee could controvert the statements contained in it by asking for the opportunity to cross examine the Manager of the bank with reference to the statement made by him. ....'' 23.The counsel for the petitioners also placed the recent judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of ICDS Ltd., reported in 2020 10 SCC 529, wherein, the Apex Court has remanded back the matter on account of the assessee being deprived of cross examination. Therefore, the respondent either should not have relied on the statements recorded under Section 132(4) or in case, if they want to rely on the same, they should not have denied the opportunity to the petitioners when they demanded of cross examining the persons who gave the statement. When the department has taken a stand that there are two groups which were searched by a single warrant and that the c....

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....ence. It is open to him to collect materials to facilitate assessment even by private enquiry. But if he desires to use the material so collected, the Assessee must be informed of the material and must be given an adequate opportunity to explain it and controvert the contents of it. (emphasis supplied) [See Dhakeshwari Cotton Mills Ltd. v. Commissioner of Income Tax, (1954) 26 ITR 775 (SC); C. Vasantial and Co. v. Commissioner of Income Tax, Bombay City, (1962) 45 ITR 206 (SC) and KishinchandChellaram v. Commissioner of Income Tax, Bombay City (1980) 125 ITR 713 (SC): (1980) 19 CTR 360: (1980) 4 Taxman 29]. In view of this legal position, in our considered view the orders of the CIT(A) and the Tribunal are in violation of principles of the natural justice. The Assessee has been deprived of fair opportunity to object and challenge the correctness of the survey report on the basis of which opinion has been formed by the CIT(A) and the Tribunal against the Assessee. In all fairness the said survey report should have been disclosed to the Assessee and the Assessee should have been provided opportunity to explain and object the findings recorded in it before forming any opinion adverse ....

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....testimony for which purpose it wanted to avail the opportunity of cross-examination. That apart, the Adjudicating Authority simply relied upon the price list as maintained at the depot to determine the price for the purpose of levy of excise duty. Whether the goods were, in fact, sold to the said dealers/witnesses at the price which is mentioned in the price list itself could be the subject matter of cross-examination. Therefore, it was not for the Adjudicating Authority to presuppose as to what could be the subject matter of the crossexamination and make the remarks as mentioned above. We may also point out that on an earlier occasion when the matter came before this Court in Civil Appeal No. 2216 of 2000, order dated 17.03.2005 was passed remitting the case back to the Tribunal with the directions to decide the appeal on merits giving its reasons for accepting or rejecting the submissions." 7.10 It is also settled proposition of law that the presumption u/s 132(4A) of the Act is subject to rebut and therefore, the assessee has right to be confronted with the information being used against the assessee. The AO has used the loose paper seized from the premises of Shri G.C.....

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....uring the course of search conducted on one M/s Agroh Infrastructure Developers Pvt. Ltd (AIDPL), the authorities seized a loose paper marked as "LPS-1-Page No. 21 / 23", which contained details of certain financial transactions. The document contained two tables, the upper-table contained the name of assessee and the transactions which were corroborated by the books of assessee. But the lowertable neither contained the name of assesssee nor the transactions mentioned therein were corroborated by assessee's books. However, the Ld. AO attributed the transactions mentioned in the lower-table to the assessee for the reason that the transactions mentioned in the upper-table were corroborated to assessee and hence the document has to be considered in entirety. Based thereon, the Ld. AO framed a view that the assessee has taken a cash loan of Rs. 1,15,00,000/- during 27/03/2008 to 31/03/2008 relevant to AY 2008-09. Further, the Ld. AO also found a transaction captioned as "buy-back of shares" of Rs. 3,66,25,000/- made during the previous year 2008-09 relevant to AY 2009-10 but concluded the same to be a transaction of cash-loan taken by assessee from AIDPL. The Ld. AO also observed that ....

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....ed books of account of appellant and the impugned loose papers were not found from premises of the appellant. Therefore, the AO is not justified in presuming buyback of shares as cash loan and interest on a loan was equally hypothetical. The statement given which has to be used against the assesse has to be confronted and opportunity to cross examine has to be provided, which squarely apply in relation to loose paper seized from the premises of Agroh where the statement was taken behind the back. 4.2.11 Last but not the least, the loose papers relating to alleged loan and interest were found and seized from premises of Agroh Group of Indore located at Aqua Point, Umaria, Mhow as page no 19-23 of LPS-1. As far as legality of the addition, it is settled position of law that no addition/ disallowance can be made to the total income of the appellant in absence of any incriminating documents in the case of non-abate assessment year. Accordingly, the scope of assessment u/s.153A would be restricted to incriminating material found during the course of search from premises of appellant. In the instant case the loose papers were found and seized from the premises of AIDPL (third pa....

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....cannot devise his own procedure for shortcut methods. In our considered opinion, when the case of the assessee is covered u/s153A and if reliance is placed on the incriminating material found during the course of search of third party, then sec153C would be applicable and have to be adhered to. Thus, in the instant case, the AO was required to first complete the proceedings u/s153A in hand, which were initiated by way of notice dt.30-6-14 and thereafter, he was at liberty to take action u/s153C for bringing the material found from the premise of Shri Ashok Choudhary to tax in the hands of the assessee. 5.7. In Shivani Mahajan (Del-Trib) dt.19-3-19 ITA No.5585/Del- Trib/2015, identical que was raised before the Tribunal as under: "9. we find that in these appeals, following 2 questions arise for our consideration: (i) Whether any material found in the search of any other person than the assessee in appeal, can be considered in the assessment u/s153A of the assessee. 5.8. The Tribunal after considering arguments of the parties held as under: "14. From a reading of the above decisions of Hon'ble jurisdictional HC, it is evident that complet....

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....168 ITD 271 (Kol-Trib) dt.6-12-17, where in Para 10 it was held as under: "10. We find that it is not in dispute that there were no documents that were seized from the premises of the assessee except loose sheets vide seized document reference KKS/1 comprising of 8 pages, for which satisfactory Explanation has been given by the assessee and no addition was made by the ld AO on this seized document. The seized document used by the ld AO for making the addition in sec153A assessment is CG/1 to 11 and CG/HD/1 which were seized only from the office premises of 'Cygnus group' of companies in which assessee is a director. In this regard, it would be pertinent to note that as per sec292C, there is a presumption that the documents, assets, books of accounts etc found at the time of search in the premises of a person is always presumed to be belonging to him/them unless proved otherwise. This goes to prove that the presumption derived is a rebuttable presumption. Then in such a scenario, the person on whom presumption is drawn, has got every right to state that the said documents does not belong to him/ them. The ld AO if he is satisfied with such Explanation, has got recourse to p....

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....he basis of document found during search conducted upon someone else, particularly because the AY 2009-10 under consideration is a non-abated assessment-year; and (iii) the Ld. AO has not provided any opportunity of cross-examination of AIDPL to the assesssee before relying upon the document found in possession of AIDPL. Thus, keeping in view these serious infirmities, the Ld. AO is not justified in using the impugned document against assessee for drawing adverse inferences and making any addition. Being so, we are in agreement with the Ld. CIT(A) that the addition of Rs. 14,83,394/- is not sustainable. We, therefore, approve the action of Ld. CIT(A). This ground is, thus, dismissed." 9. We find that both sides are ad idem to the point that the material on the basis of which the JCIT imposed penalties u/s 271D and 271E are same as in case of quantum-appeals of assessee in IT(SS)A No. 32 & 33/Ind/2021 (supra) and IT(SS)A No. 32 to 34/Ind/2021 (supra). We further note that in those quantum-appeals, the first appellate authority as well as ITAT have concurrently disagreed and rejected the observations/ inferences/conclusions drawn by assessing authority. Since there is nothing new ....

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.... the same. The revenues' grounds are dismissed. 12. Resultantly, all these appeals are dismissed. Order pronounced in open court on 31.01.2024. ============= Document 1 No Name damunt date 7 DM Poddar (Pape R 06-13-08 20M Par Pope F 0913-00 Raghunath Pressed Polar Manja And Agrawal (Par 15-09-09 5000000 15-p-041 D.M. Podate p 16-13-08 On Poddar (be An Pudd 24-03-09 Of Lami Narayan Kala 13-01-09 DM Poder pa Vinia Nagya 28-01-09 Ch 28-Oc 30 Maps Anil Agrawal (Poddar 11 DM Poddar Top 13-000 13 for ma 21-06-08100000001/10 1/0/10 04-11-08 x000 Now 12 M. Podle Pape 11-11-08 13 2 Sest Savia Podder (Pape Postal Papa 16-Nov-1+12 05-05-0 15 DM. Poddar (Papa F) 21-11-07 25 Nov Dalt Particulars 1-4-2008 By Opening Balance 18-4-2008 By 1Cash 27-6-2008 By 1Cash 12-11-20 By 1Cash -12-2008 By 1Cash 25-12 2008 By 1Cash To Closing Balance 1-8-2009 By Opening Balance 28-2009 To Cash To Closing Balance 200 XYZ 08092 DM Poddar Ledger Acco 3-Apr-2008 1 Page Vch Type Vch No Detil Credit 55,00,000.00 Recept Receipt....

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....H India 01.04.08 2800 Conveyance 150 Paid PATH India 01.04.08 150 Mp Road Labour Dept. 3000 Faid 03.04.08 Pureet Agrawal MG 100000 Paid L Satya Narayan Mukati Marriage Gift 8400 Paid 2800 Puid PATH India 01.04.08 2800 AK Shrotriyuji Salary Conveyance 70000 Paid 300 Paid PATH India 03.04.08 200 Vehicle Hire Charges NS Bursa AE Puneet Agrawal Mess Exp Donation Conveyance Pol Exp 1200 Paid PATH India 03.04.08 1200 SCCCC Paid 200000 Paid 8455 Paid PATH India 03.04.08 8415 1:00 Paid PATH India 03.04.08 1100 Office Exp Piyusha Mantri 05.04.08 Dena Bank 628 Pád 1716 Pd 70 Paid PATH India 03.04.08 628 FATH India 03.04.08 1716 PATH India 03.04.08 70 185 Paid Ajaysinghchouhan AE 1000 Puid 511867 Recd PATH India 03.04.08 251651 PATH India 04.04.08 100000 PATH India 05.04.08 260216 05.04.08 Punect Agrawal MG 200000 d NS Dara AB 100000 Pd SD Agrawal PFE 51096 SD Agrawal Crusher E 31710 Paid PATH India 04.04.08 31710 Nocraj Barua F 22000 Paid Harish Mishra 11596 ....