M/S UB INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS LIMITED,BANGALORE vs. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX, BANGALORE

This appeal is preferred by the assessee against the order of CIT(Appeals)-7, Bengaluru, inter alia, on the following grounds:

During the course of hearing, the ld. counsel for the assessee has invited our attention to the fact that there was no exempt income earned by the assessee during the impugned assessment year. Therefore, the provisions of section 14A cannot be invoked. In support of this contention, he placed reliance upon the judgment of the Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of Cheminvest Ltd. v . CIT as reported in 378 ITR 33 (Del) and also the order of the Tribunal in the assessee’s own case for assessment year 2010-11.

Having carefully examined the orders of authorities below, we find that undisputedly the assessee has not earned any exempted income. Now it is settled position of law that whenever assessee did not earn any exempt income, no disallowance could be made u/s. 14A of the Act. The Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of Cheminvest Ltd. v. CIT, 378 ITR 33 (Del) has categorically held that section 14A envisages that there should be actual receipt of income which was not includible in the total income during the relevant previous year for the purpose of disallowing any expenditure in relation to the said income. Wherever there is no exempt income includible in the total income of the assessee, the provisions of section 14A cannot be invoked. The relevant observations of the judgment of the Hon'ble Delhi High Court are extracted hereunder:- "15. Turning to the central question that arises for consideration, the court finds that the complete answer is provided by the decision of this court in CIT v. Holcim India (P) Ltd. (decision dated 5th September 2014, in I. T. A. No. 486 of 2014). In that case, a similar question arose, viz., whether the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal was justified in deleting the disallowance under section 14A of the Act when no dividend income had been earned by the assessee in the relevant assessment year ? The court referred to the decision of this court in Maxopp Investment Ltd. (supra) and to the decision of the Special Bench of the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal in this very case, i.e., Cheminvest Ltd. v. CIT [2009] 317 ITR (AT) 86 (Delhi) [SB]. The court also referred to three decisions of different High Courts which have decided the issue against Revenue. The first was the decision in CIT v. Lakhani Marketing Incl. (decision dated April 2, 2014, of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana in I. T. A. No. 970 of 2008)--since reported in [2015] 4 ITR-OL 246 (P&H)-- which in turn referred to two earlier decisions of the same court in CIT v. Hero Cycles Ltd. [2010] 323 ITR 518 (P&H) and CIT v. Winsome Textile Industries Ltd. [2009] 319 ITR 204 (P&H). The second was of the Gujarat High Court in CIT v. Corrtech Energy (P.) Ltd. [2014] 223 Taxmann 130 (Guj) ; [2015] 372 ITR 97 (Guj) and the third of the Allahabad High Court in CIT v. Shivam Motors (P) Ltd. (decision dated 5th May, 2014, in I . T. A. No. 88 of 2014). These three decisions reiterated the position that when an assessee had not earned any taxable income in the relevant assessment year in question "corresponding expenditure could not be worked out for disallowance."

This was also examined by the Tribunal in the assessee’s own case for assessment year 2010-11 and held that when there is no exempt income, provision of section 14 of the Act cannot be applied.

In the light of the aforesaid judgment, the provisions of section 14A cannot be invoked as there is no exempt income in the hands of the assessee. Accordingly, we find no infirmity in the order of the CIT(Appeals) who has rightly deleted the addition.

In the result, the appeal of the assessee is dismissed.