Assessee is a shipping company incorporated in Mauritius.  Assessee entered into shipping agency agreement with two entities in India. Assessing Officer, after referring to various clauses of agency agreement held that both these entities were exclusively working on behalf of assessee and were not providing services to assessee in regular course of their business and both entities could not be considered to be agents having independent status and, thus, exceptions provided under article 5(5) were not applicable to them and held that assessee had a PE in India and, thus, shipping income earned by assessee was taxable in India. CIT (A) affirmed the order of the Assessing Officer. On appeal the Tribunal held  both companies were providing services to various companies relating to shipping activities and they were not exclusively working for assessee and not only were they agents of independent status, but services provided by them to various shipping companies including assessee were in course of their ordinary business as per article 5(5).  Since both companies did not constitute agency PE of assessee in India, business profits of assessee would not be taxable in view of article 7.   (AY.  1998-99 to 2001-02)