The Court held that  the assessee was non-suited primarily on the ground that it had accepted the transfer to be a sale falling within the provisions of section 50B of the Act, and approached the bond issuing authorities for investment in certain bonds in terms of section 54EC of the Act to avoid payment of capital gains tax. The Assessing Officer, the Commissioner (Appeals) and the Tribunal had committed a fundamental error in shutting out the contention raised by the assessee solely on the ground that the assessee approached the bond issuing authorities for availing of the benefit under section 54EC. In the assessee’s case, all the relevant facts were available even before the Assessing Officer while the scrutiny assessment was in progress. Therefore, there was no estoppel on the part of the assessee to pursue its claim. The fundamental legal principle is that there is no estoppel in taxation law. An alternative plea can be raised and it can even be a plea which is contradictory to the earlier plea. Court also held that  the Tribunal had committed a factual mistake in referring to a valuation report not concerning the transaction, which was the subject matter of assessment. In the statement filed under section 393 of the Companies Act before the High Court. In the scheme of arrangement there was no monetary consideration, which was passed on from the transferee-company to the assessee, but there was only allotment of shares. There was no suggestion on behalf of the Revenue of bad faith on the part of the assessee-company nor was it alleged that a particular form of the transaction was adopted as a cloak to conceal a different transaction. The mere use of the expression “consideration for transfer” was not sufficient to describe the transaction as a sale. The transfer, pursuant to approval of a scheme of arrangement, was not a contractual transfer, but a statutorily approved transfer and could not be brought within the definition of the word sale.( AY.2006-07)