Assessee entered into merchant agreement with various hotels for facilitating reservation/booking of hotel rooms through platform of assessee. Assessee assured minimum benchmarks/occupancy of hotel and in case such benchmark was exceeded then service fee was payable by hotel and in case of shortfall assessee was required to meet same. Assessee filed its return of income declaring loss of Rs. 30 crores.  During scrutiny assessment, addition of Rs. 1.09 crores was made under section 40(a)(ia) for non-deduction of tax at source either under section 194-I or 194C on minimum guarantee expense of Rs. 3.62 crores.  Commissioner(Appeals) held that such payments were not rent, however, upheld disallowance for non-deduction of tax under section 194C. Tribunal held that  provisions of section 194C provide that any person responsible for paying any sum to any resident for carrying out any work in pursuance of a contract between contractor and a specified person shall deduct tax on sum paid or credited to account of contractor, sine qua non for applicability of this provision is carrying out any work.However, since assessee is  merely compensating shortfall pursuant to agreement and no work had been carried out, assessee would not be liable for TDS under section 194C on minimum guarantee payments made to hotels. (AY. 2015-16)