TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2022 (8) TMI 1525
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....r hearing today. The common grievance in all these appeals is that the first appellate authority was not justified in upholding the adjustment, made by the Centralized Processing Centre Bengaluru while processing income tax returns under section 143(1) based on certain inputs from the tax audit reports of the assessee in question, in respect of the disallowance on account of delay in making the payment towards the employees' contribution for the provident fund and ESI dues, under section 36(1)(va) r.w.s. 2(24)(x) of the Act, particularly when there are judgments of Hon'ble jurisdictional High Court permitting such a deduction. 2. When these appeals came up for hearing, learned Departmental Representative fairly agreed that the issue in appeal is squarely covered in favour of the assessee, by a co-ordinate bench decision in the case of Kalpesh Synthetics Pvt Ltd Vs DCIT [(2022) 137 taxmann.com 475 (Mum)] wherein the co-ordinate bench has, inter alia, observed as follows:- 2. The issue in appeal lies in a very narrow compass of common material facts. While processing the income tax return filed by the assessee, apparently, based on information contained in column 20(b) of the tax ....
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....ed and is in appeal before us. 3. Learned counsel for the assessee, has a three-fold submission. His first plea is that in the light of law laid down by Hon'ble jurisdictional High Court, in the case of KhatauJunkar Ltd. v. K S Pathania [(1992) 196 ITR 55 (Bom)] the scope of prima facie disallowance under section 143(1) is inherently very limited and only such a disallowance can be made under this statutory provision as can be conclusively held to inadmissible based on material on record. It is submitted that a claim backed by the binding judicial precedents of Hon'ble jurisdictional High Court- as in this case, at the minimum, cannot fall in this category. Our attention was invited to Hon'ble jurisdictional High Court's judgments in the cases of CIT v. Hindustan Organic Chemicals Limited [(2014) 366 ITR 1 (Bom)] and CIT v. Ghatge Patil Transports Ltd [(2014) 368 ITR 749 (Bom)]. What is on record, in this case, is an audit report which is prepared by a third party, i.e. an independent tax auditor, and a lapse in the tax audit report, as indeed in this case, cannot be put against the assessee for the purpose of a disallowance under section 143(1). For this short re....
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....tion, where such deduction exceeds specified statutory limit which may have been expressed as monetary amount or percentage or ratio or fraction. It is submitted that when the audit report itself points out the delay in payment of provident fund dues, the claim of deduction for provident fund dues, to that extent, is "inconsistent" with another entry, i.e. by way of the tax audit report input, and that, in any event, any disallowance of expenditure in question is indicated in the audit report but not taken into account in computing the total income in the return. He submits that the Assessing Officer CPC cannot be faulted for going by the information submitted by the tax auditor, appointed by the assessee, and that the tax audit report is an integral part of the income tax return filed by the assessee. The disallowance is thus justified for this short reason alone. As regards the legal position regarding the deductibility of payments in question even when it is paid after the due date under the relevant statute but as long as the same is made before the due date of filing of income tax return, learned Departmental Representative submitted that there are decisions on both the sides,....
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....legal position, as binding on the Assessing Officer CPC in view of the situs of the jurisdictional Assessing Officer and in view of the judgment of Hon'ble jurisdictional High Court, is that the payments made beyond the due date under the relevant statute but before the due date of filing of the income tax return under section 139(1) cannot attract the disallowance for the reason of delay. Once again learned counsel has referred to and relied upon the decisions of the coordinate benches holding that the insertion of Explanations to Section 36(1)(va) and 43B, by the Finance Bill 2021, is prospective in nature, and, accordingly, so far as the period prior to 1st April 2021 is concerned, such a disallowance cannot come into play. We are thus once again urged to delete the impugned adjustment. 4. We have heard the rival contentions, perused the material on record and duly considered the facts of the case in the light of the applicable legal position. 5. In our considered view, it is quite evident, from a careful look at the related statutory provisions, that there is a material difference in the scheme of processing the income tax return under section 143(1)(a) as it stands now....
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.... furnished; or (iii) in respect of a deduction, where such deduction exceeds specified statutory limit which may have been expressed as monetary amount or percentage or ratio or fraction. On the second point, it is useful to bear in mind the fact that the scheme of Section 143(1)(a) thus permits the processing of the income tax return in the manner that the total income or loss of the assessee is computed after making the adjustments for (i) any arithmetical error in the return; (ii) an incorrect claim, if such incorrect claim is apparent from any information in the return; (iii) disallowance of loss claimed, if return of the previous year for which set off of loss is claimed was furnished beyond the due date specified under sub-section (1) of section 139; (iv) disallowance of expenditure indicated in the audit report but not taken into account in computing the total income in the return; (v) disallowance of deduction claimed under sections 10AA, 80-IA, 80-IAB, 80-IB, 80-IC, 80-ID or section 80-IE, if the return is furnished beyond the due date specified under sub-section (1) of section 139; or (vi) addition of income appearing in Form 26AS or Form 16A or Form 16 which has not been....
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....judicial function. Clearly, the Assessing Officer CPC has the discretion to go ahead with the proposed adjustment or to drop the same. The call that the Assessing Officer CPC has to take on such objections has to be essentially a judicious call, appropriate to facts and circumstances and in accordance with the law, and the Assessing Officer CPC has to set out the reasons for the same. Whether there is a provision for further hearing or not, once objections are raised before the Assessing Officer CPC and the Assessing Officer CPC has to dispose of the objections before proceeding further in the matter, this is inherently a quasi-judicial function that he is performing, and, in performing a quasi-judicial function, he has to set out his specific reasons for doing so. Disposal of objections cannot be such an empty formality or meaningless ritual that he can do so without application of mind and without setting out specific reasons for rejecting the same. Let us, in this light, set out the reasons for rejecting the objections. The Assessing Officer-CPC has used a standard reason to the effect that "As there has been no response/the response given is not acceptable, the adjustment(s) as....
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....ase is no longer an isolated aberration. This has become a recurring phenomenon. How judges communicate in their judgments is a defining characteristic of the judicial process. While it is important to keep an eye on the statistics on disposal, there is a higher value involved. The quality of justice brings legitimacy to the judiciary 7. These observations of Their Lordships apply equally, and in fact with much greater vigour, to the quasi-judicial functionaries as well. Viewed thus, reasons in a quasi-judicial order constitute the soul of the quasi-judicial decision. A quasi-judicial order, without giving reasons for arriving at such a decision, is contrary to the way the functioning of the quasi-judicial authorities is envisaged. A quasi-judicial order, as a rejection of the objections against the proposed adjustments under section 143(1) inherently is, can hardly meet any judicial approval when it is devoid of the cogent and specific reasons, and when it is in a standard template text format with clear indications that there has not been any application of mind as even the inapplicable portion of the template text, i.e. whether there was no response or whether the response is ....
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....itor. On the one hand, the position of the auditor is treated so subservient to the assessee that the views expressed by the auditor are treated as a reflection of the stand of the assessee, and, on the other hand, the views of the auditor are treated as so sacrosanct that these views, by themselves, are taken as justification enough for a disallowance under the scheme of the Act. There is no meeting ground in this inherently contradictory approach. Elevating the status of a tax auditor to such a level that when he gives an opinion which is not in harmony with the law laid down by the Hon'ble Courts above- as indeed in this case, the law, on the face of it, requires such audit opinion to be implemented by forcing the disallowance under section 143(1), does seem incongruous. Learned Departmental Representative's contentions in this regard that the observations made in the tax audit report, in the light of the specific provisions of Section 143(1)(a)(iv), must prevail- more so when the tax auditor is appointed by the assessee himself, is clearly unsustainable in law. While Section 143(1)(a)(iv) does provide for a disallowance based purely on the "indication" in the tax audit ....
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....h Court, it cannot be open to anyone in the jurisdiction of that Hon'ble High Court to read it in any other manner than as read by the Hon'ble jurisdictional High Court. The views expressed by the tax auditor, in such a situation, cannot be reason enough to disregard the binding views of the Hon'ble jurisdictional High Court. To that extent, the provisions of Section 143(1)(a)(iv) must be read down. What essentially follows is that the adjustments under section 143(1)(a) in respect of "disallowance of expenditure indicated in the audit report but not taken into account in computing the total income in the return" is to be read as, for example, subject to the rider "except in a situation in which the audit report has taken a stand contrary to the law laid down by Hon'ble Courts above". That is where the quasi-judicial exercise of dealing with the objections of the assessee, against proposed adjustments under section 143(1), assumes critical importance in the processing of returns. It is also important to bear in mind the fact that what constitutes jurisdictional High Court will essentially depend upon the location of the jurisdictional Assessing Officer. While dealin....
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....s not been found to be decisive in the light of the law laid down by Hon'ble Courts above, and it cannot, therefore, be said that the reporting of payment beyond this due date in the tax audit report constituted "disallowance of expenditure indicated in the audit report but not taking into account in the computation of total income in the return" as is sine qua non for disallowance of Section 143(1)(a)(iv). When the due date under Explanation to Section 36(1)(va) is judicially held to be not decisive for determining the disallowance in the computation of total income, there is no good reason to proceed on the basis that the payments having been made after this due date is "indicative" of the disallowance of expenditure in question. While preparing the tax audit report, the auditor is expected to report the information as per the provisions of the Act, and the tax auditor has done that, but that information ceases to be relevant because, in terms of the law laid down by Hon'ble Courts, which binds all of us as much as the enacted legislation does, the said disallowance does not come into play when the payment is made well before the due date of filing the income tax return u....