TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (12) TMI 693
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....edly certain documents and digital data indicating under invoicing and suppression of scrap sales by JBM group companies to various scrap dealers were found and seized. The assessee's case was accordingly taken up for assessment and under Section 153C by issuing a notice against which assessee had filed return reporting income as earlier reported. The AO examined the issue of unrecorded investment and concluded that assessee had made a cash payment for purchase of land at Bithalpur for which addition was made of Rs. 10.94 crores and stand sustained by the Ld. CIT(A) to the extent of Rs. 25,70,000/- for which the assessee is in appeal before us and so is the department. 3. On hearing both the sides we find that it is ground no. 2 which Ld. Counsel at first argued and whereby the approval granted under Section 153D of the Act has alleged to be granted in mechanical and arbitrary manner without application of mind. 4. Though the Ld. DR defended the approval what we find coming up admittedly is that in regard to multiple years for AY 2012-13 onwards till AY 2018-19 this approval letter dated 04.03.2021 mentions that approval was granted to the draft assessment orders 'as amended'....
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....decide upon any rights of the assessee. The Joint Commissioner, while examining the matter under the proviso to section 158BG does not examine or adjudicate upon the rights or obligations of the assessee, but only considers whether the Assessing Officer has fulfilled the requirements of Chapter XIV." In view of the above the allegation of the appellant that the Additional Commissioner of Income Tax, Central Rage-2, New Delhi has granted the approval u/s. 153D in mechanical manner and without application of mind has no meaning as the approval is an administrative action which is required to be based on existence of set of circumstances and on subjective satisfaction as per the provisions of the Act. Further approval u/s. 153D being an official act provided under the statute, it is to be presumed that before according approval, the Range Head has looked into the records, applied his mind and he did not find any reason to disapprove the order passed by the Assessing Authority and thereafter he has accorded the approval. The appellant cannot say that there was no application of mind just by seeing the approval letter of the Jt./ Addl. Commissioner. It is a well- known fact tha....
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....ntion that any time between this letter dated 28.03.2022 or 30.03.2022, the two authorities have gone through the draft assessment order afresh, so as to justify the use of words 'as amended' in the approval letter. 10. It can be further appreciated from the material on record and discussion aforesaid that this is a case where excessive reliance has been placed on the electronic/digital evidence, and the approving authority does not mention in the approval letter that electronic evidences were examined and were tested on principles of law governing the relevancy and admissibility of electronic evidences seized during search or analyzed later on. Rather, the approving authority by mentioning para-3 of the approval letter that "you have certified about perusal and verification of data seized in electronic format through working copies having certified hash values as that of original hard drives/CDs/pen drives/mobile data & any other electronic data" admits that without any independent verification, the AO's certification was relied to accept that the electronic evidences were collected and relied in accordance with law." 7.1 The coordinate bench further held that where el....
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.... the requirement of law. The approving authority is expected to indicate his thought process while granting approval, held that it is not correct on the part of the Revenue to contend that the approval itself is not justifiable. Where the Court finds that the approval is granted mechanically, it would vitiate the assessment order itself. The Hon'ble High Court inter-alia observed that there is no even a token mention that draft order has been perused by the Ld. Addl. CIT. The approval letter simply grants approval. In other words, even the bare minimum requirement of approving authority having to indicate what thought process involved leading to the aforementioned approval has not been provided. As explained, the mere repeating of words of the Statue or mere rubber stamping of the communication seeking sanction by using similar words like 'approval' will not, by itself, meet the requirement of law. The Hon'ble Court made reference to manual issued by the CBDT in the context of erstwhile section 158BG of the Act and observed that such manual serves as a guideline to the AOs. Since it was issued by CBDT, the powers of issuing such guidelines can be traced to section 1....