With regard to the sting operation carried out by NDTV regarding the role of a defense lawyer (R. K. Anand) and the Special Public Prosecutor (I. U. Khan) in an ongoing Sessions trial commonly called the “BMW case” and the suo motu criminal contempt action undertaken by the High Court, the Court passed strictures against two senior advocates and directed that they should be prohibited from appearing before the Court and subordinate courts for four months and that they should be stripped of their designation as senior advocates. The case discusses important aspects of the law as to when abuse of an advocate and when abuse by an advocate can constitute contempt of the law.

the Supreme Court held that the assessee was not entitled to claim a deduction by way of a letter filed before the AO without filing a revised return. However, this judgement is limited to the power of the AO to entertain a claim for deduction otherwise than by revised return and does not impinge on the power of the Tribunal to entertain the claim by way of an additional ground.

It is not possible to accept the submission of the Revenue that once the AO comes to the conclusion that there is a breach of the mandate of Section 158BFA(1), then the penalty has to be mandatorily imposed. The terminology of section 158BFA makes it clear that the AO has a discretion in the matter of levy of penalty.

Writ petitions were filed challenging the constitutional validity of the provisions of Section 245HA of the Income Tax Act, 1961 under which the petitioners’ applications before the Settlement Commission are to be treated as having abated on account of failure of the Settlement Commission to pass orders under Section 245D(4) of the Act on or before 31.03.2008. In view of the fact that the Supreme Court was seized of an identical issue, the petitions were disposed of with the direction that the parties would abide by the decision of the Supreme Court and in the meanwhile the assessment proceedings would be stayed.

Where the department had not disputed that the expenditure was deductible in principle but was only disputing the year in which the deduction could be allowed HELD, castigating the department, that as the tax rates were the same in both years, the department should not fritter away its energies in raising questions as to the year of deductibility/taxability.