DCIT, CIRCLE-9(2), NEW DELHI vs. FORTIS HEALTH MANAGEMENT LTD.,, NEW DELHI

Brief facts of the case are that the assessee company is engaged in the business of providing clinical establishments services and management of hospitals. They have filed their return of income for the assessment years 2014-15 and 2015-16 and while computing the taxable income of the assessee for both the years, learned Assessing Officer made an addition of Rs. 44, 12,, 00, 311/-and Rs. 44, 41, 76, 97/- for the assessment years 2014-15 and 2015-16 respectively by invoking the provisions under section 14A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (for short “the Act”) read with Rule 8D of the Income Tax Rules1962 (“the Rules”).

Case of the assessee all through the proceedings is that the assessee did not earn any exempt income during the year and, therefore, the provisions of section 14A of the Act read with Rule 8D of the Rules have no application to the facts of the case and on that score the addition is not maintainable. Ld. CIT(A), in the appeal, accepted the contention of the assessee and while placing reliance on the addition of the Hon’ble jurisdictional High Court in the case of Cheminvest Ltd vs. CIT (2015) 378 ITR 33 (Delhi) and also the decision in Holcim India private limited in and a deleted the addition.

Revenue is aggrieved by such deletion and preferred these appeals. Ld. DR placed reliance on the assessment order and submitted that insofar as the expenditure is concerned, if not in this year, in the future the assessee is likely to earn the dividends and because the assessee incurred some expenditure in the investment which will early exempt income, such part of expenditure allocatable to the investment has to be disallowed.

Per contra, it is the submission on behalf of the assessee that since the Ld. CIT(A) followed the binding precedents, the findings of the Ld. CIT(A) cannot be found fault with.

We have gone through the record in the light of the submissions made on either side. There is no dispute and as a matter of fact Ld. CIT(A) categorically recorded that the assessee had not earned any exempt income during these assessment years and therefore the decision of the Hon’ble jurisdictional High Court in the cases of Cheminvest Ltd (supra) and Holcim India Pvt. Ltd (supra) are applicable to the facts of the case. There is no expiration from the Revenue as to how the binding decisions need not or cannot be followed by the Ld. CIT(A).

Hon’ble Jurisdictional High Court in PCIT vs. IL & FS Energy Development Company Ltd. (2017) 99 CCH 0190 DelHC, (2017) 297 CTR 0452 (Del) decided on 16th August, 2017, after considering a catena of decisions, held the issue in favour of the assessee and observed that,-

Mr. Hossain further submitted that there was nothing in Section 14A of the Act which suggested that exempt income had to necessarily be earned in the AY in question for the applicability of the said provision. He submitted that if the interpretation placed on Section 14

In the considered view of the Court, this will be a truncated reading of Section 14 A and Rule 8D particularly when Rule 8D (1) uses the expression ‘such previous year’. Further, it does not account for the concept of ‘real income’. It does not note that under Section 5 of the Act, the question of taxation of ‘notional income’ does not arise. As explained in Commissioner of Income Tax v. Walfort Share and Stock Brokers Pvt. Ltd [2010] 326 ITR 1 (SC), the mandate of Section 14A of the Act is to curb the practice of claiming deduction of expenses incurred in relation to exempt income being taxable income and at the same time avail of the tax incentives by way of exemption of exempt income without making any apportionment of expenses incurred in relation to exempt income. Consequently, the Court is not persuaded that in view of the Circular of the CBDT dated 11th May 2014, the decision of this Court in Cheminvest Ltd. (supra) requires reconsideration.

In M/s. Redington (India) Ltd. v. The Additional Commissioner of Income Tax, Company Range – V, Chennai (order dated 23rd December, 2016 of the High Court of Madras in TCA No. 520 of 2016), a similar contention of the Revenue was negated. The Court there declined to apply the CBDT Circular by explaining that Section 14A is “clearly relatable to the earning of the actual income and not notional income or anticipated income.” It was further explained that, “The computation of total income in terms of Rule 8D is by way of a determination involving direct as well as indirect attribution. Thus, accepting the submission of the Revenue would result in the imposition of an artificial method of computation on notional and assumed income. We believe thus would be carrying the artifice too far.”

The decisions in CIT v. M/s Lakhani Marketing Inc. 2014 SCC Online P&H 20357, CIT v. Winsome Textile Industries Limited [2009] 319 ITR

It was suggested by Mr. Hossain that, in the context of Section 57(iii), the Supreme Court in Commissioner Of Income Tax, West v. Rajendra Prasad Moody [1978] 115 ITR 519 (SC) explained that deduction is allowable even where income was not actually earned in the AY in question. This aspect of the matter was dealt with by this Court in M/s Cheminvest Ltd. (supra) where it reversed the decision of the Special Bench of the ITAT by observing as under: “20. Since the Special Bench has relied upon the decision of the Supreme Court in Rajendra Prasad Moody (supra), it is considered necessary to discuss the true purport of the said decision. It is noticed to begin with that the issue before the Supreme Court in the said case was whether the expenditure under Section 57 (iii) of the Act could be allowed as a deduction against dividend income assessable under the head “income from other sources”. Under Section 57 (iii) of the Act deduction is allowed in respect of any expenditure laid out or expended wholly or exclusively for the purpose of making or earning such income. The Supreme Court explained that the expression "incurred for making or earning such income?, did not mean that any income should in fact have been earned as a condition precedent for claiming the expenditure. The Court explained: “What s. 57(iii) requires is that the expenditure must be laid out or expended wholly and exclusively for the purpose of making or earning income. It is the purpose of the expenditure that is relevant in determining the applicability of s. 57(iii) and that purpose must be making or earning of income. s. 57(iii) does not require that this purpose must be fulfilled in order to qualify the expenditure for deduction. It does not say that the expenditure shall be deductible only if any income is made or earned. There is in fact nothing in the language of s. 57(iii) to suggest that the purpose for which the expenditure is made should fructify into any benefit by way of return in the shape of income. The plain natural construction of the language of s. 57(iii) irresistibly leads to the conclusion that to bring a case within the section, it is not necessary that any income should in fact have been earned as a result of the expenditure."

The decisions of the ITAT in ACIT v. Ratan Housing Development Ltd. (supra) and Relaxo Footwear Ltd. v. Addl. CIT (supra), to the extent that they are inconsistent with what has been held hereinbefore do not merit acceptance. Further, the mere fact that in the audit report for the AY in question, the auditors may have suggested that there should be a disallowance cannot be determinative of the legal position. That would not preclude the Assessee from taking a stand that no disallowance under Section 14 A of the Act was called for in the AY in question because no exempt income was earned. 8. In view of the above position of law, we are of the considered opinion that where there is no dispute of fact that no dividend income was earned by the assessee during the year, no disallowance is called for under section 14 A of the Act. For these reasons, we uphold the findings of the Ld. CIT(A) and dismiss the grounds of appeal of the Revenue.

In the result, appeals of the Revenue are dismissed.