SH. BALBIR SHARMA,DELHI vs. ITO, NEW DELHI

The only issue raised by the assessee in the appeal is against the confirmation of addition of Rs.5 lac made by the Assessing Officer on account of unexplained gift u/s 68 of the Act.

Succinctly, the facts of the case are that the assessee deposited a sum of Rs.5 lac in his bank account. On being called upon to furnish the source of such deposit, the assessee filed a letter on the ‘Dak’ counter of the Department stating that his grand maternal mother gave him a gift of Rs.5 lac in cash before her death which was kept by him with his father, namely, Shri Jai Narain Sharma and, later on, he received back the same from his father and deposited in his bank account. Substantiating the claim, the assessee filed a copy of the gift deed, again, on the Dak counter. The Assessing Officer found that the copy of the alleged gift deed was not legible and the alleged donor had only put her thumb impression. The Assessing Officer further noticed that the assessee was in receipt of salary income from Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs and the information passed on to him by DGIT (Inv.) showed that search was conducted by CBI authorities on the assessee on 10.07.2006. It was further observed that being a Government servant, the assessee, as per the Conduct Rules, was under an obligation to intimate the receipt of the gift taken from his relative and nothing was placed on record to show that intimation of such gift was ever given by the assessee to his Department. As the assessee failed to prove the credit worthiness of the donor who was claimed to have expired in the year 2000, the Assessing Officer did not accept the genuineness of the credit. He, therefore, made addition for the equal sum, which came to be confirmed by the ld. CIT(A), giving the following reasons:- a) No return of income was filed by the assessee; b) The appellant specifically opened new bank account and on the same

The assessee is aggrieved against the sustenance of the addition.

Having heard the rival contentions and perused the relevant material on record, it is noticed that the assessee has made out a case of having received a gift from his maternal grandmother in the year 2000 which was kept by him with his father and, subsequently, received the same amount back in instalments. It can be seen that the assessee simply filed his replies before the Assessing Officer on the ‘Dak’ counter and did not participate by personally appearing. Simply a copy of the gift deed was filed without showing the actual gift deed to the Assessing Officer. The assessee has claimed that he was adopted by his maternal grandmother. On going through the gift deed, it is seen that there is a mention of ‘Adoption deed’ therein. On a specific query, the ld. AR did not have a copy of such Adoption deed. The ld. AR has filed details of the alleged repayments made by the father to the assessee on several dates, which amount in total was claimed to have been deposited in his bank account on a single date.