2024 (6) TMI 900

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....lated appeal filed before the Tribunal. The Tribunal, considering the rival contentions, has rendered the impugned order whereby it has granted a conditional stay on collection of the impugned tax and interest demands in the following terms: "....... we deem it fit and proper to grant a stay on collection of the impugned tax and interest demands on the condition that (i) the assessee will pay Rs. 230 crores, which works out to approximately 20% of the disputed tax demand, within 30 days from today; (ii) the assessee will furnish a corporate guarantee from an associate company, which has unencumbered assets in India in excess of the balance disputed demands, i.e., Rs. 900 crores; and (iii) the assessee will fully cooperate in expeditious disposal of the appeal in question, as also other appeals which are tagged and clubbed with this appeal, and in case of any lapses on the part of the assessee in this regard, this stay shall stand vacated forthwith. This order shall remain in force for six months from today or till further orders - whichever is earlier. The assessee and the income tax department are also directed to furnish the details of all the related appeals, which may ....

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.....44 crores under the provisions of Section 92C of the Act in determining the value of the transactions (put and call options), which were said to be assigned to the petitioner. She has submitted that the percentage of high pitched adjustment to returned income was 220.33%, in respect of which a tax demand was made against the petitioner as per the assessment order was of an amount of Rs. 3738.49 crores. It is contended that the petitioner had assailed the assessment order before the Tribunal. The Tribunal had rejected the petitioner's appeal against which the petitioner had preferred an appeal before this Court, which came to be allowed by a decision dated 8 October, 2015 of Division Bench of this Court (Vodafone India Services P. Ltd. vs. Commissioner of Income-tax and Anr.,) (2016) 385 ITR 169 Bom. It is contended that such decision of this Court was assailed by the Revenue before the Supreme Court in a Special Leave Petition, on which the Supreme Court has granted leave by an order dated 13 May, 2016 and the proceedings are sub-judice. Be that as it may, Ms. Sethna would not dispute that insofar as such proceedings for A.Y. 2008-09 were concerned in pursuance of the interim orde....

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....o be reckoned for the purpose of interim stay in regard to the proceedings for the assessment year 2014-15. 5. Ms. Sethna has also submitted that condition no. (ii) of the impugned order necessarily needs to be interfered with inasmuch as in the facts and circumstances of the case, certainly it was neither feasible nor practicable to comply such condition to furnish a corporate guarantee from an associate company which has unencumbered assets in India in excess of the balance disputed demands, i.e. Rs. 900 crores. According to her, such condition has been coined for the first time and would amount to a gross departure from the orders which were passed from the prior assessment years not only by the Tribunal but also accepted by this Court and Gujarat High Court as seen from the chart. 6. Mr. Suresh Kumar, learned counsel for the revenue in opposing the petition has drawn our attention to the impugned order passed by the Tribunal to submit that in paragraph 5 of the impugned order, detailed observations are made to pass the order in question. It is submitted that considering the facts of the case and by applying the settled principles of law the Tribunal has exercised jurisdic....

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....ny grievance. This is also clearly seen from the chart as tendered by Ms. Sethna, which we have extracted hereinabove. 9. We are also not inclined to accept Ms. Sethna's contentions on the observations made by the Tribunal which we have extracted hereinabove in paragraph 8. We may observe that such observations as made by the Tribunal would not assist the petitioner. It is in fact factually correct that the assessment year 2008-09, being a substantive assessment, the assessment for the year 2010-11 would be required to be treated as a protective assessment. However, the events which have triggered taxation in the subsequent period are different, as it pertains to 6.01% of the holding in respect of call and put options being actually exercised. Hence, such observations of the Tribunal cannot be regarded to be in any manner warranting interference with the impugned order. In any event, the Tribunal has clearly observed that what was relevant for the impugned order to be passed, is the events of taxation for the subsequent years are different from what was the position in the year 2008-09. This is clear from the following observations: ".... In any event, the triggers for ....