9911796707
TMI Blog2025 (2) TMI 537X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... conducted u/s 132 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 ('Act' for short) at the residential as well as business premises of Assessee's comprising M/s P. S. Enterprises and ors group of cases. In all the above cases, an approval u/s 153D of the Act dated 11/08/2021 has been issued by the Addl. Commissioner of Income Tax, Central Range, Meerut in respect of the assessment years 2013-14 to 2019-20 pursuant to the office letter of DCIT, Central Circle, Ghaziabad/A.O. dated 11/08/2021.Based on the said approval granted u/s 153D of the Act, the assessment proceedings have been initiated for assessment years 2013-14 to 2019-20 and the assessment orders have been passed against the Assessee by making certain additions. As against the assessment orders, the Assessee has preferred respective Appeals before the Ld. CIT(A). The Ld. CIT(A) dismissed the Appeals for Assessment Year 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2019-20 vide order dated 18/06/2024 which are called in question before us in the respective Appeals filed by the Assessee. 4. Since, all the captioned Appeals are filed by the Assessee and are emerging out of single search and seizure operation and also considering the issue to be decided in the above A ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... volved with the assessment proceedings right from the inception. Therefore, submitted that the by contention of the Assessee's Representative that the Ld. ACIT has given mechanical approval has no force. 8. Further, the Ld. DR vehemently argued that bare reading of provisions of section 153D of the Act, which provides only about existence of approval from the ld. ACIT. There is no mention of application of mind on the part of the ld. ACIT or the approving authority in the said section. The expression "application of mind" is only provided by the judicial decisions and not provided in the statute. Further submitted that, the literal interpretation is to be given to the provisions of section 153D of the Act which does not provide for application of mind of the approving authority and hence any other interpretation contrary to the same would only result in re-writing the law. The Ld DR also argued that in some of the cases the Assessee files details at the last moment and that is why the approval is obtained from ld ACIT in the last moment. The Ld. Department's Representative has also submitted that the Ground challenging the approval issued u/s 153D of the Act has not been r ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... id seized documents after considering the reply of the assessee. All these functions, as stated earlier, are to be performed by the ld. JCIT in a judicious way after due application of mind. Even though as vehemently argued by the Ld. CIT-DR, the ld. JCIT is involved with the search assessment proceedings right from the time of receipt of appraisal report from the Investigation Wing, still, the ld. JCIT, while granting the approval u/s 153D of the Act has to independently apply his mind dehors the conclusions drawn either by the Investigation Wing in the appraisal report or by the Ld. AO in the draft assessment order. The copy of the appraisal report submitted by the Investigation Wing to the Ld. AO and ld. JCIT are merely guidance to the Ld. AO and are purely internal correspondences on which the assessee does not have any access. Moreover, the Act mandates the Ld. AO to frame the assessment after getting prior approval from ld. JCIT u/s 153D of the Act. The ld. JCIT getting involved in the search assessment proceedings right from inception does not have any support from the provisions of the Act as no where the Act mandates so. The scheme of the Act mandates due application of mi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... xamine whether in the aforesaid background of the scheme of the Act, whether the approval in terms of section 153D of the Act has been granted by the ld. JCIT in a judicious way after due application of mind or not, in the instant case. We have gone through the approval granted by the ld. JCIT on 27.03.2015 u/s 153D of the Act. The said approval letter clearly states that a letter dated 27.03.2015 was filed by the Ld. AO before the ld. JCIT seeking approval of draft assessment order u/s 153D of the Act. The ld. JCIT has accorded approval for the said draft assessment order on the very same day i.e. on 27.03.2015 for various assessment years for 232 files on a single day. In any event, whether is it humanly possible for an approving authority like the ld. JCIT to grant judicious approval u/s 153D of the Act for all the assessment years on a single day is the subject matter of dispute before us. Further, we find that similar issue has been addressed by the Hon'ble Jurisdictional High Court in the case of PCIT vs. Anju Bansal in ITA 368/2023 order dated 13.07.2023 wherein, under similar circumstances, the Hon'ble Delhi High Court categorically held that statutory approval give ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... aw and consequently vitiated the assessment order for want of valid approval u/s 153D of the Act. In view of the above discussion, we hold that the order passed u/s 153A r.w.s. 143(3) has to be quashed, thus ordered accordingly. The ground raised by the Assessee is accordingly allowed". [Emphasis is ours] 14. In this appeal, we are required to examine whether any substantial question of law arises for our consideration. 15. Having regard to the findings returned by the Tribunal, which are findings of fact, in our view, no substantial question of law arises for our consideration. The Tribunal was right that there was absence of application of mi nd by the ACIT in granting approval under Section 153D. It is not an exercise dealing with a immaterial matter which could be corrected by taking recourse to Section 292B of the Act. 16. We are not inclined to interdict the order of the Tribunal." 10. The ld. AR also placed on record the recent decision of Hon'ble Jurisdictional High Court in the case of PCIT vs Shiv Kumar Nayyar reported in 163taxmann.com9 (Del) wherein it was held that where order of approval u/s 153D of the Act for relevant assessment year was granted by Addit ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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