COURT: | Delhi High Court |
CORAM: | Chander Shekhar J, S. Muralidhar J |
SECTION(S): | 143(3), 147, 148 |
GENRE: | Domestic Tax |
CATCH WORDS: | Change of opinion, Reassessment, Reopening of assessment |
COUNSEL: | M S Syali, Mayank Nagi, Satyen Sethi |
DATE: | May 18, 2017 (Date of pronouncement) |
DATE: | May 27, 2017 (Date of publication) |
AY: | 1998-99, 1999-00, 2001-02 |
FILE: | Click here to view full post with file download link |
CITATION: | |
S. 147/148 reassessment has to be based on "fresh material". A reopening based on reappraisal of existing material is invalid. The assessee's duty is only to disclose facts and not to make inferences. Consolidated Photo 281 ITR 394 (Del) is not good law |
The reopening was not based on any fresh material. By revisiting the same materials the successor AO now concluded that the payments received by the Assessee pursuant to the O&M Agreements should be treated as FTS. In the circumstances, the view taken by a successor AO on the same material was indeed nothing but a mere change of opinion. It is a well-settled legal proposition, as explained in Calcutta Discount Co. Ltd. v. ITO [1961] 41 ITR 191(SC) that once an Assessee has discharged the burden of not only producing the account books and other documents, but also the specific material relevant to the assessment, “it is for the Income-tax Officer to draw the proper inferences of fact and law therefrom and the Assessee cannot further be called upon to do so for him.” In Indian Oil Corporation v. ITO [1986] 159 ITR 956 the Court pertinently observed “it is for the taxing authority to draw inference. It is not necessary for the Assessee to draw inference.” These observations apply on all fours to the case on hand
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