TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (5) TMI 461
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....eedings are illegal, void ab initio, and without jurisdiction, as the statutory preconditions for invoking Section 153C of the Act were not satisfied, rendering the proceedings bad in law and liable to be quashed. 3. That on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the AO has erred in failing to record the requisite satisfaction as mandated under law, thereby rendering the impugned proceedings invalid, bad in law, and without jurisdiction. 4. That the approval granted under Section 153D of the Act for passing the assessment order under Section 153C is invalid, as it has been granted in a mechanical manner, without independent application of mind, rendering the assessment order bad in law. 5. That on the facts and in law, the approval under section 153D stands vitiated due to non-application of mind, as both the proposal and the approval are mere carbon copies across years and group entities, issued in the fag end, in breach of the statutory mandate. 6. That the approval under Section 153D of the Act is bad in law as both the proposal and the approval under Section 153D were invalid being issued without a Document Identification Number (DIN....
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....CIT(A) has erred in upholding the same. 17 On the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the AO erred in charging interest and initiating penalty proceedings under Section 271AAC of the Act. That in view of the facts and circumstances of the case, the appellant craves leave to add, amend alter any of the grounds of appeal. 3. Brief facts of the case as per the order of the Ld. CIT(A) are as under: - '8.1 It is seen from the facts emanating from the assessment order that during a search and seizure operation carried out u/s 132 of the Act on the Alankit group [stated to be a conglomerate of several group companies and entities with diversified activities] comprising of key persons/entities, viz., Shri Alok Kumar Agarwal, Shri Ankit Agarwal, M/s Alankit Limited, M/s Alankit Assignments Limited on 18.10.2019, some incriminating documents were found in the name of the appellant, whose case was centralized and proceedings u/s 153C of the Act was carried out after recording of satisfaction notes by the Officers concerned. The appellant, in response to notice issued u/s 153C on 15.11.2022 filed Return of Income (Rol) on 06.12.2022 declaring total inc....
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....ned income. Against the assessment order the appellant has filed this appeal raising as many as 26 (twenty-six) grounds of appeal, most of which are repetitive and argumentative in nature. Clubbing these grounds of appeal (supra) raised by the appellant [and the submissions filed] in the instant appeal on the basis of their content for the sake of brevity and clarity, the same are adjudicated in the paras that follow: 9. Grounds no. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21 and 22: In these repetitive grounds of appeal, the appellant has raised various general and legal grounds, more in the form of statements, against the assessment made in its case. For instance, the appellant has contended that the initiation of assessment proceedings and the issue of notice u/s 153C of the Act are bad in law, without jurisdiction and barred by limitation; that the additions are beyond the scope of the satisfaction note; that there was no material pertaining to the appellant or incriminating material found against the appellant during search; that the addition/s made are beyond the scope of provisions of section 153C of the Act; that the satisfaction note drawn was mechanical; that the....
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....aras 3 and 5 of the assessment order, the appellant, on 06.10.2023, was duly provided copies of the Satisfaction Notes drawn by the AOs concerned. The appellant was also provided copy of the incriminating seized documents. The submissions filed bythe appellant were examined and taken on record. Enquiries were made with banks u/s 133(6) of the Act. The tenets of natural justice were duly observed. As for the appellant's contention that no material was found against it during the search action and that the AO did not consider an affidavit/document filed by it during assessment proceedings refuting and denying allegations of cash transactions; these can, at best, be seen as self-serving arguments and document. In his statement recorded on oath u/s 132(4A) ofthe Act, Shri Sunil Kumar Gupta, key employee of Shri Alok Kumar Agarwal, explained the contents of the incriminating material seized. Shri Gupta had recorded all the bank and cash entries done by Shri Alok Kumar Agarwal for himself, his family, the companies owned by him or his family members and the companies/entities controlled and influenced by him and used for the purpose of channelizing unaccounted money into the bank acc....
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....39;ble Supreme Court Chairman, Board of Mining Examination v Ramjee AIR 1977 SC 965, wherein it was held as follows:- 'Natural justice is no unruly horse, no lurking land mine, nor a judicial cure all. If fairness is shown by the decision maker to the man proceeded against, the form, features and the fundamentals of such essential processual propriety being conditional by the facts and circumstances of such situation, no breach of natural justice can be complained of. Unnatural expansion of natural justice, without reference to the administrative realities and other factors of a given case, can be exasperating. We can neither be finical nor financial but should be flexible yet firm in this jurisdiction.' 9.3 It appears that the appellant has merely resorted to raising these grounds in a routine manner without having any corroborative basis to the same. No merit is found in these grounds of appeal raised by the appellant." 5. Keeping in view the findings given by the Ld. CIT(A) and the submissions made by the ld. DR, along with the written submissions fi led by the ld. Counsel for the Assessee and the submissions made by him during the proceedings before us,....
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....tions without any corroborative evidence and details. The documents/arguments relied upon by the appellant for its denial of the transactions during appellate proceedings have already been examined at the assessment stage, as elaborated by the AO in the aforementioned paras of the impugned assessment order, and cannot be termed as corroborative and independent details having the mettle to alter the fact-based conclusions arrived at by the AO against the background of the modus operandi adopted in accommodation entry/ money routing activities in lieu of cash. As evidenced in the case of the appellant and the Alankit group, there exists a complex web of transactions undertaken through various group and family entities/persons/companies used to provide layers so as to facilitate accommodation entries to beneficiaries and colour the unaccounted income. The contentions of the appellant thus fail to negate the reasons for the additions made in the assessment order. 11.2 Without prejudice to the specific findings in the assessment order, it may be pertinent to mention here that while assessing the total income of an assessee, especially in a case that has undergone the rigours of....