TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (3) TMI 2070
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....ted Railroad Constructions Private Limited. 3. For the assessment year 2010-11 he filed the return of income on 22/11/2010 and assessment under section 143(3) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (for short "the Act") was complete by order dated 28/1/2013. There was a search and seizure operation under section 132 of the Act on 20/7/2015. Based on the statement of the assessee made on 20/7/2015 and also from the entries in assessee's bank account, and on verification of the information learned Assessing Officer made three additions, namely Rs. 1.44 crores towards the undisclosed income from Sh. Vamsheedhar Rs. 10,47,778/- towards undisclosed income from Sh. Sreenivasa Sivakumar and Rs. 10,19,040/- towards undisclosed monthly pension from LIC. 4. Aggrieved by such an action of the learned Assessing Officer assessee preferred appeal before the learned CIT(A) and contended that in the absence of any incriminating material found during the course of search, qua the assessment year, any additions to the total income of the assessee in the concluded assessment, cannot be made. The other contention of the assessee was that the amounts from Sh. Vamsheedhar and Sh. Sreenivasa Sivakumar were th....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....umar vs. CIT (2016) 75 taxmann.com 215 (Ker), CIT vs. Raj Kumar Arora (2014) 52 taxmann.com 172 (All), Suman Poddar vs. ITO, SLP No. 26864/2019, dt. 22/11/2019 (SC), Suman Poddar vs. ITO, ITA No. 841/2019, dt. 17/09/2019 (Del), Suman Poddar vs. ITO, ITA No. 1006/Del/2019, dt. 25/07/2019 (ITAT, New Delhi), Krishna Devi vs. ITO, ITA No. 6356/Del/2019, dt. 04/01/2022, SEBI vs. Rakhi Trading Pvt. Ltd., Civil Appeal No. 1969 of 2011, 08/02/2018 (SC), Anandtex International P. Ltd., vs. ACIT, ITA No. 2476/Del/2018, dt. 24/02/2022. He also placed reliance on the decision reported in B. Kishore Kumar vs. DCIT [2014] 52 taxmann.com 449 (Madras) against which, the SLP was dismissed by the Hon'ble Apex Court. Learned DR tried to make a distinction between the assessments concluded under section 143(3) of the Act and 143(1) of the Act, to say that the concluded assessment means only such assessment, which is terminated by the order passed under section 143(3) of the Act. Learned DR further submitted that there is incriminating material available in this case in the form of the statement made by the assessee. 8. We have gone through the record in the light of the submissions made on either s....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....re is no mention of the seized material by the legislature in the Section 153A. Further, there is no mention of the concept of undisclosed income in Section 153A as it was in the case of Section 158B. The procedure for Search assessments has been introduced in the form of Section 153A and the Section 158B and others as mentioned in Chapter XIV-B which was a special procedure is no longer applicable. The Section 158B to 158BI had the concept of undisclosed income and which was further based on documents or incriminating material. The legislature has introduced the new provision u/s 153A w.e.f. 01.06.2003 which mandates assessment for the stipulated years without drawing any satisfaction and only on the basis of initiation of Search action u/s 132. The concept of undisclosed income has been made consciously absent as can be seen on the comparison of both the provisions and procedure, the same thus implies that the Assessing Officer is mandated to complete assessment for 6 years as per law and is not bound or limited to undisclosed income or seized material. Anything which is clearly absent in the provision and importing the same without any reference or justification is comp....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....quent information received pending the completion of assessment proceedings u/s. 153A or information other than seized material available before the initiation of notice u/s. 153A for which the Assessing Officer was contemplating issue of notice u/s. 148 would also merge with the proceedings u/s. 153A. Otherwise, it would be an exercise of initiating u/s. 148 and then issuing u/s. 153A and dropping the initiated proceedings u/s. 148 which would be a just unnecessary paper work. However, the above discussion has been made just for explanation, the section 153A is very clear and it is an obligation on the part of the Assessing Officer to initiate proceedings without any discretion or judgment. It is mandatory on the part of the Assessing Officer to initiate the proceedings as provided u/s. 153A as it is mentioned the Assessing Officer shall in the said section, which leaves no room for interpretation. Thus, the Assessing Officer is empowered and rather obliged to make additions as a regular assessment also while completing the assessment proceedings u/s 153A. Further, the appellant has admitted additional income of Rs. 13 crores in the statement given u/s 132(4) of IT Act wh....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....ndia) (P.) Ltd. (supra), a statement of assessee at the time of search on standalone basis has no evidentiary value and cannot be acted upon to fasten any liability on the assessee. 12. Coming to the main aspect of fastening the liability on the assessee in the shape of additions pursuant to the search and seizure operations, in the preceding paragraphs we found that no assessment proceedings were pending as on the date of search and no incriminating evidence was found during the search. On the aspect of jurisdiction of the learned Assessing Officer to make any addition in the absence of any incriminating material to be found in such search and seizure operations, though the divergent views taken on this aspect are brought to our notice by both the counsel, the Hon'ble Supreme Court put a quietus to the issue by the decision in the case of PCIT vs. Abhisar Buildwell P. Ltd. (supra). While in complete agreement with the view taken by the Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of CIT vs. Kabul Chawla, (2015) 61 taxmann.com 412 (Delhi) and the Hon'ble Gujarat High Court in the case of PCIT Vs. Saumya Construction (2016) 387 ITR 529 and the decisions of the other Hon'b....