NEHA AGARWAL ,HYDERABAD vs. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX ,CENTRAL CIRCLE-1(3), HYDERABAD

Brief facts of the case are that the assessee is an individual and deriving income from salary, business, capital gains and other sources. For the assessment year 2013-14, she filed her return of income on 27/07/2013 declaring income at Rs. 15,57,230/-. She claims to have been declared Long Term Capital Gain on the sale of shares of Gemstone Investments Ltd., to the tune of Rs. 4,39,139/-. The return was processed under section 143(1) of the Act without initiation of the proceedings under section 143(2) of the Act and it attained finality.

Subsequently, search and seizure operation under section 132 of the Act was conducted in the case of assessee along with various entities, namely, Ravi Foods Pvt. Ltd., and others on 15/11/2018. Having issued notice under section 153A of the Act and considered the return of income filed in response thereto, learned Assessing Officer completed the assessment under section 143(3) read with section 153A of the Act by making addition of Rs. 4,39,139/- by denying the claim of exemption under section 10(38) of the Act.

Aggrieved thereby, the assessee preferred appeal before the CIT(A) and, among other things, argued that there was no incriminating material relevant to the matter on the issue pertaining to assessment year 2013-14 and since no assessment was pending for the assessment year 2013-14 as on the date of search in this matter, in terms of the decision of the Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of CIT vs. Kabul Chawla, 380 ITR 573 / (2015) 61 taxmann.com 412 (Delhi), no interference could be made with the concluded assessment, while making assessment under section 153A of the Act.

Learned CIT(A) did not agree with the contentions raised by the assessee and recorded that once the search warrant was executed, the assessment as provided under section 153A of the Act is mandatory, and such section does not limit the jurisdiction of the learned Assessing Officer to a seized material alone, but rather it very clearly provides from the abatement of pending proceedings as a kind of assessment which could be made, based on records and seized material or either. According to the learned CIT(A), if there is any subsequent information received, pending the completion of assessment proceedings under section 153A of the Act or information other than seized material available before the initiation of notice under section 153A of the Act for which the learned Assessing Officer was contemplating issue of notice under section 148 of the Act, would also merge with the proceedings under section 153A of the Act. He, therefore, concluded that section 153A of the Act is very clear and it is an obligation on the part of the learned Assessing Officer to initiate the proceedings without any discretion or judgment and the learned Assessing Officer is empowered and rather obliged to make additions as a regular assessment also while completing the assessment proceedings. On this premise, learned CIT(A) dismissed the appeal.

Assessee, therefore, preferred this appeal on many grounds, but the main plank of argument of the learned AR is that when there is no incriminating material found during the search in case of a concluded

Per contra, learned DR submits on behalf of the Revenue that section 153A of the Act does not limit the jurisdiction of the learned Assessing Officer to make the addition to the seized material alone and on the other hand, it is the bounding duty of the learned Assessing Officer to initiate proceedings under section 153A of the Act, the moment the search warrant is executed. According to the learned DR, there is no room from interpretation of this aspect and no discretion is left with the learned Assessing Officer to initiate or not initiate proceedings under section 153A of the Act in case of a search or, to limit his power to assess basing on the incriminating material alone. Learned DR placed reliance on several decisions reported in support of his contentions, namely, Gopal Lal Bhadruka vs. DICT (2012) 27 taxmann.com 167 (AP), E.N. Gopakumar vs. CIT (2016) 75 taxmann.com 215 (Ker), CIT vs. Raj Kumar Arora (2014) 52 taxmann.com 172 (All), Suman Poddar vs. ITO, SLP No. 26864/2019, dt. 22/11/2019 (SC), Suman Poddar vs. ITO, dt. 17/09/2019 (Del), Suman Poddar vs. ITO, ITA No. 1006/Del/2019, dt. 25/07/2019 (ITAT, New Delhi), Krishna Devi vs. ITO, ITA No. 6356/Del/2019, dt. 04/01/2022, SEBI vs. Rakhi Trading Pvt. Ltd., Civil Appeal No. 1969 of 2011, 08/02/2018 (SC), Anandtex International P. Ltd., vs. ACIT, ITA No. 2476/Del/2018, dt. 24/02/2022.

We have gone through the record in the light of the submissions made on either side. Insofar as the facts and figures are concerned, there is not much dispute. The return of income filed by the assessee for the Smt. Prerana Agarwal and batch assessment year 2013-14 on 27/07/2013 was processed under section 143(1) of the Act and notice under section 143(2) of the Act was never issued. By the date of search on 15/11/2018, four years elapsed after the last date for issuance of notice under section 143(2) of the Act in this case. It is also not the case of the Revenue that any incriminating material was found during the search that was considered by the learned Assessing Officer, but made the assessment. In these circumstances, the question that arises for consideration is whether any interference could be made with the concluded assessments while assessing the income under section 153A of the Act, when no incriminating material was found.

As stated earlier, the return of income filed by the assessee for the assessment year 2013-14 on 27/07/2013 was processed under section 143(1) of the Act by 30/09/2014. Neither notice under section 143(2) of the Act was issued nor any proceedings were pending as on the date of search. Though the divergent views taken on this aspect are brought to our notice by both the counsel, the Hon'ble Supreme Court put a quietus to the issue by the decision in the case of PCIT vs. Abhisar Buildwell P. Ltd. (supra). While in complete agreement with the view taken by the Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of CIT vs. Kabul Chawla, (2015) 61 taxmann.com 412 (Delhi) and the Hon'ble Gujarat High Court in the case of PCIT Vs. Saumya Construction (2016) 387 ITR 529 and the decisions of the other High Courts taking the view that no addition can be made in respect of the completed assessments in absence of any incriminating material, Hon’ble Apex Court concluded that- i) that in case of search under Section 132 or requisition under Section 132A, the AO assumes the jurisdiction for block assessment under section 153A; ii) all pending assessments/reassessments shall stand abated; iii) in case any incriminating material is found/unearthed, even, in case of unabated/completed assessments, the AO would assume the jurisdiction to assess or reassess the ‘total income’ taking into consideration the incriminating material unearthed during the Smt. Prerana Agarwal and batch

As far as the remaining appeals in 460/Hyd/2021, 461/Hyd/2021, 462/Hyd/2021, 463/Hyd/2021, 464/Hyd/2021, 352/Hyd/2022, 353/Hyd/2022 & 354/Hyd/2022 are concerned, facts are identical to the facts in the case of Prerana Agarwal (supra) except in the case of Smt. Anita Agarwal in ITA No. 462/Hyd/2021, wherein the initial assessment was complete under section 143(3) read with section 153A of the Act. In none of the cases any addition was made in the original assessment, and no incriminating material was found during the search. Our findings in the said appeal, mutatis mutandis, would apply to these appeals as well. Hence, all these appeals are also allowed. (AY.2013-14) (Smt. Nirmala Agarwal)

In this case also, facts are similar to the above cases, except that in the assessment under section 143(3) read with section 153A of the Act,

To sum-up all the appeals of assessees are allowed.