The ACR & the Follow up file are an integral part of the ACR record of the officer. In Arvind Kejriwal vs. CPIO AIR 2010 Delhi 216 it was held that except in cases involving overriding public interest, the ACR record of an officer cannot be disclosed to any person other than the officer himself/herself. As the CIC has not examined whether larger public interest justifies the disclosure of the information sought by the Petitioner in this case, matter remanded with the direction the information should be disclosed if the CIC comes to a conclusion that larger public interest justifies the disclosure

In penalty proceedings, it has to be seen whether the claim was bona fide or it was bogus and result of falsehood. On facts, there was no dispute on the genuineness of the advances. A trading loss has a wider connotation than a bad debt. While a bad debt may also be a trading loss, a trading loss need not necessarily be a bad debt. A bad debt may not fall within the purview of s. 36(1)(vii) but may well be regarded as being eligible for deduction as being a “trading loss”. Accordingly, the claim was neither mala fide nor false but was bona fide and made after disclosure of facts (CIT vs. Reliance Petroproducts 322 ITR 158 (SC) followed)

S. 2(22)(e) provides that any “loan or advance” by a closely held company to a substantial shareholder shall be assessed as “deemed dividend“. The purpose is to tax accumulated profits distributed in the form of loans. Bearing this purpose in mind, the word “advance” has to be read in conjunction with the word “loan”. The attributes of a loan are that it involves a positive act of lending coupled with acceptance by the other side of the money as loan: it generally carries interest and there is an obligation of re-payment. The term “advance” may or may not include lending. The word “advance” if not found in conjunction with the word “loan” may or may not include the obligation of repayment. If it does then it would be a loan. Applying the doctrine of noscitur a sociis, the word “advance” means such advance which carries with it an obligation of repayment. Trade advance which are in the nature of money transacted to give effect to a commercial transactions do not fall within the ambit of s. 2(22)(e) (CIT Vs. Raj Kumar 318 ITR 462 followed)

The Tribunal is a judicial body and while the President exercises administrative control over the Benches, he has no power to write the ACRs of the Members. Further, being a judicial body, the Tribunal should have judicial autonomy and therefore, the Government cannot act like a reviewing authority

U/s 9(1)(vi) of the Act & Article 12 of the DTAA, “payments of any kind in consideration for the use of, or the right to use, any copyright of a literary, artistic or scientific work” is deemed to be “royalty“. Under the Copyright Act, 1957, a software programme constitutes a “copyright”. A right to make a copy of the software and use it for internal business by making copy of the same and storing it on the hard disk amounts to a use of the copyright u/s 14 (1) of that Act because in the absence of such a licence, there would have been an infringement of the copyright. Accordingly, the argument that there is no transfer of any part of the copyright and the transaction involves only a sale of a copyrighted article is not acceptable. The amount paid to the supplier for supply of the “shrink-wrapped” software is not the price of the CD alone nor software alone nor the price of licence granted. It is a combination of all. In substance unless a licence was granted permitting the end user to copy and download the software, the CD would not be helpful to the end user