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TMI Blog1997 (10) TMI 409X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... P bid for tenders issued by the Government of India for the grant of cellular licences and succeeded in obtaining two Groupe Speciale Mobile (GSM) cellular licences, one each for the States of Karnataka and Punjab. Highly sophisticated 'telecommunications network being new to India, persons experienced in planning, designing, setting up and operating such networks had to be borrowed by MNP from DCL and one of the persons whose services were obtained by MNP is the applicant, David Kenneth White. 3. Under an employment agreement dated 25-9-1996, MNP appointed David Kenneth White to its Chandigarh Office with a liability to be transferred to any place in India. His salary and performance bonus were fixed at ₹ 57,60,000 per annum and ₹ 18,36,000 per annum, respectively, payable every month and the applicant was also entitled to certain other perquisites under the agreement. The agreement, however, provides as follows : Now it is hereby agreed as follows- General Taxation 13. Subject to the Executive being granted a 'technician status', under section 10(5B) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, he shall be compensated on a net ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... xure I, the applicant is a qualified technician as defined under section 10(5B); and accordingly 2. The applicant would be entitled to the exemption under section 10(5B) of the Act. 8. Section 10(5B ) reads as follows : (5B) in the case of an individual who renders services as a technician in the employment (commencing from a date after the 31st day of March, 1993) of the Government or of a local authority or of any corporation set up under any special law or of any such institution or body established in India for carrying on scientific research as is approved for the purposes of this clause or sub-clause (viia) of clause (6) by the prescribed authority or in any business carried on in India and the individual was not resident in India in any of the four financial years immediately preceding the financial year in which he arrived in India and the tax on his income for such services chargeable under the head 'Salaries' is paid to the Central Government by the employer which tax, in the case of an employer, being a company, may be paid not withstanding anything contained in section 200 of the Companies Act 1956 (1 of 1956), the tax so paid by the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the applicant has raised the question posed before the Authority in its return filed in the assessment proceedings for the assessment year 1997-98. This, however, is not so because the words in quotations have to be given a practical interpretation consistent with the scheme of the Act. By the present application filed on 27-3-1997, the applicant had exercised his choice to have recourse to the proceedings under Chapter XIX-B. But this did not give him immunity from his obligation to file a return of income under the Act on or before 30-6-1997 or to present other proceedings arising therefrom. To hold that the subsequent act of filing a return would vitiate and render infructuous the application filed earlier under section 245Q(1) of the Act would render the entire procedure of seeking an advance ruling otiose. Such an interpretation of the Act would not be correct. What the clause prohibits is the attempt to raise before the Authority questions which, on the date of the application before the Authority, were being agitated in other fora. This Authority has held to this effect in the case of Monte Harris' case (supra) already referred to earlier on a different point. The presen ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ce'. The submission is that things related to computer technology or associated devices have been dealt with separately in the statute and that such activities do not cover provision of telecommunication facilities, basic or cellular. The applicant, therefore, cannot, it is said, be treated as a technician within the meaning of section 10(5B) read with the notification dated 27-7-1993. 14. This Authority is of the opinion that the applicant's contention that he is a 'technician' within the meaning of section 10(5B) read with notification dated 27-7-1993 has to be accepted. The construction sought to be placed by the department on the expression 'information technology' is very narrow. Longman's Dictionary of Contemporary English (New Edition, 1987) defines 'information technology' as the science or practice of collecting, storing, using and sending out information by means of computer systems and telecommunications . Even the definitions referred to by the department do not exclude the field of cellular telephones from the purview of the expression 'information technology' as they also refer to the process of dissemination of in ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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