The Tribunal held that the money in the account did not belong to the assessee, was never used by the assessee and was part of the legacy left behind by her father in 1986 and this was duly accepted by the Revenue authorities. Even before the bank account was detected by the Revenue authorities, the entire balance in the account had been donated. The plea that such a lapse of non-disclosure of bank account, was only an inadvertent mistake, and that conscious non-disclosure or any mens rea in the non-disclosure was completely contrary to human probabilities, merited acceptance. It was not, by any stretch of logic or imagination, a case of diversion of unaccounted wealth in India to the undisclosed bank accounts abroad. Therefore, the imposition of penalty was not valid. (AY. 2017-18)
Add. CIT v. Leena Gandhi Tiwari (2022)96 ITR 384/ 216 TTJ 905 (Mum) (Trib)
S .43 : Penalty-Furnishing inaccurate particulars of income-Black money-Information received from investigation wing-Foreign bank account-Search and Seizure-Non-disclosure of account inadvertent mistake-Not a case of diversion of unaccounted Indian wealth to undisclosed foreign bank accounts-Penalty cannot be levied. [S. 2(11), 60]