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2020 (3) TMI 1231

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..... te of profit applied on the turnover of the assessee does not amount to concealment or furnishing inaccurate particulars. In the case on hand the Assessing Officer has only estimated the Gross Profit on the alleged non-genuine purchases without there being any conclusive proof of concealment of income or furnishing inaccurate particulars of such income. Thus, we do not observe any infirmity in the order passed by the Ld.CIT(A) in deleting the penalty u/s. 271(1)(c) of the Act levied by the Assessing Officer - Decided in favour of assessee - ITA NO. 1267/MUM/2019 - - - Dated:- 13-3-2020 - Shri C.N. Prasad, Hon'ble Judicial Member And Shri S. Rifaur Rahman, Hon'ble Accountant Member For the Assessee : Shri Jignesh Amrutlal For the Department : Shri Bheraram ORDER PER C.N. PRASAD (JM) 1. This appeal is filed by the revenue against the order of the Learned Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) 1, Mumbai [hereinafter in short Ld.CIT(A) ] dated 03.12.2018 for the Assessment Year 2010-11. 2. Revenue has raised the following grounds in its appeal: - 1. Whether on the facts and in the circumstances of the case and in law, the Ld. CIT(A) was .....

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..... s, the Assessing Officer estimated the profit element from the non-genuine purchases at 12.5% and brought to tax. Assessing Officer initiated the penalty proceedings and levied penalty u/s. 271(1)(c) of the Act stating that the assessee has y furnished inaccurate particulars of income thereby concealed its true and correct income within the meaning of section 271(1)(c) of the Act. On appeal the Ld.CIT(A) deleted the penalty. Against this order of the Ld.CIT(A), revenue is in appeal before us. 4. Ld. Counsel for the assessee supported the order of the Ld.CIT(A) and on the other hand, Ld. DR vehemently supported the order of the Assessing Officer. 5. We have heard the rival submissions, perused the orders of the authorities below. It is a settled position of law that penalty cannot be levied when an adhoc estimation is made. In this case an adhoc estimation was made by the Assessing Officer restricting the profit element in the purchases @12.5%. On identical situations the Coordinate Bench in the case of Shri Deepak Gogri v. Income Tax Officer in ITA.No. 1396/MUM/2017 dated 23.11.2017 held that no penalty is leviable observing as under: - 6. We have heard the rival submiss .....

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..... y further enquiries or investigation. In our view the penalty cannot be imposed where the additions are made on estimate basis. The Tribunal has considered an identical issue in the case of Deepak Popatlal Gala, in ITA No. 5920/M/13 and vide order dated 27.3.2015, it has held as under:- 10. The next issue relates to disallowance made out of purchases and assessed u/s 69C of the Act. We heard the parties and perused the record. The total purchase expenditure claimed by the assessee during the year under consideration was ₹ 7,36,27,555/-. The AO noticed that the Sales Tax Department of Government of Maharashtra has listed out names of certain dealers, who were alleged to have been providing accommodation entries without doing actual business. The AO noticed that the assessee made purchases to the tune of ₹ 38.69 lakhs from two parties named M/s Umiya Sales Agency Pvt Ltd and M/s Mercury Enterprises, whose names found place in the list provided by the Sales Tax Department. The AO placed full reliance on the enquiries conducted by Sales Tax Department in respect of the parties, referred above. Accordingly, the AO took the view that the purchases to the tune of ₹ .....

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..... by Ld CIT(A) would show that the first appellate authority has analysed the issue in all angles and applied the ratio laid down by the High Courts and Tribunals in deciding this issue. Hence, we do not find any reason to interfere with his order on this issue. We also find that in the following cases the Tribunal has taken similar view in some of the case that on the basis of third party evidence, addition made by the AO cannot be held as good law and deleted the addition which are as under: - a) Ramesh Kumar and Co V/s ACIT in ITA No.2959/Mum/2014 (AY-2010-11) dated 28.11.2014; b) DCIT V/s Shri Rajeev G Kalathil in ITA No.6727/Mum/2012 (AY-2009-10) dated 20.8.2014; and c) Shri Ganpatraj A Sanghavi V/s ACIT in ITA No. 2826/Mum/2013 (AY-2009-10) dated 5.11.2014 10. In all the above said cases, the Co-ordinate Benches of the Tribunal has held that the AO was not justified in making the addition on the basis of statements given by the third parties before the Sales Tax Department, without conducting any other investigation. In the instant case also, the assessing officer has made the impugned addition on the basis of statements given by the parties before t .....

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..... raises the aforesaid question of law. 4. In order to attract Clause (c) of Section 271(1) of the Act, it is necessary that there must be concealment by the assessee of the particulars of his income or if he furnishes inaccurate particulars of such income. What is to be seen is whether the assessee in the present case had concealed his income as held by the Assessing Officer and the Tribunal. He had not maintained any accounts and he filed his return of income on estimate basis. The Assessing Officer did not agree with the estimate of the assessee and brought his income to tax by increasing it to ₹ 2,07,500. This, too, was on estimate basis. The Tribunal agreed that the income of the assessee had to be assessed on an estimate of the turnover but was of the view that the estimate as made by the Assessing Officer was highly excessive and it fixed the total income of the assessee at ₹ 1,50,000 for the year under appeal. It is, thus, clear that there was a difference of opinion as regards the estimate of the income of the assessee. Since the Assessing Officer and the Tribunal adopted different estimates in assessing the income of the assessee, it cannot be said that th .....

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