Stock exchange compliance charges qualify as deductible business expenditure; bona fide cess claims cannot trigger under-reporting penalties.

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....Stock exchange charges for delivery, reporting, margin and other operational or procedural lapses were treated by the ITAT as non-statutory compensatory payments incurred to secure compliance under exchange bye-laws and regulations. Their description as penalties or fines in the tax audit report did not make them expenditure for an offence or a purpose prohibited by law under Explanation 1 to section 37(1); the disallowance was deleted. A deduction claim for health and education cess, made in good faith under prevailing jurisdictional High Court law, did not become under-reporting or misreporting merely because a later retrospective amendment disallowed it. The related penalty was therefore deleted.....