Loading judgment…
No AI summary yet for this case.
Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, DELHI BENCH: ‘SMC-I’ NEW DELHI
Before: SMT DIVA SINGH
Date of Hearing 22.09.2015 Date of Pronouncement 16.11.2015 ORDER The present appeal has been filed by the assessee assailing the correctness of the order dated 23.10.2013 of CIT(A), Meerut pertaining to 2001-02 assessment year on the ground that directions given by the ITAT in the remand have not been fully complied with. Ld. AR, Mr. Vinod Goel referring to the grounds raised submitted that the issue had been remanded to the AO to look into the issue of gift of Rs.5 lacs de novo. Despite this fact again an addition has been made. The Ld. Sr.DR placed reliance upon the orders of the authorities below.
2. Having heard the submissions and perused the material on record. It is seen from the assessment order itself that the Co-ordinate Bench vide its order dated 2222/Del/2006 dated 13.08.2008 set aside the issue of the alleged gift of Rs.5 lacs stated to have been received by the assessee from HUF from Sh. Sanjay Mohan Agarwal on 31.03.2000 vide draft No.969095 dated 31.03.2000 issued by Vijaya Bank, New Delhi. The specific direction in the remand is reproduced from the assessment order hereunder:- "Since the assessee has filed the additional ground stating that the said impugned gift is not related to the assessment year under consideration and this ground was not dealt with by the lower authorities, in the interest of justices, this issue is to be I.T.A .No.-289/Del/2014 looked into by the Assessing officer and it is inappropriate to be decide the issue on merits by us. Hence, we set aside this issue to the file of the AO for deciding the same afresh after affording reasonable opportunity of being heard to the assessee. The appeal of the assessee is allowed for statistical purposes".
In appeal before the First Appellate Authority, the Ld. Commissioner came to the following finding:- 3.3. “The facts of the case have been considered. It is noted that the ITAT has set aside the case with reference only to the additional ground and the assessment order as also the appeal required to be restricted to such additional ground. No independently verifiable evidence has been brought on record to establish that demand draft had been received by the assessee on 31.03.2000.ln view of the fact that the purported gift was held to be not genuine in the original assessment and appeal proceedings, the credibility of any statement made by the so called donor is seriously eroded. The gift deed and the affidavit of the donor therefore cannot be a credible evidence in support of the contention that the amount had been received on 31.03.2000. In view of the above, the date of the credit of that amount to the bank account of the assessee has necessarily to be treated as the date of receipt of amount. Therefore, the assessment had correctly been made in the year under consideration. The other issues relating this case have already been decided by the then CIT(A), Meerut in the order dated 21.03.2006 and cannot be reconsidered/reviewed in the present appeal unless there is a specific direction to this effect by the ITAT.”
The Ld.AR in the course of his arguments inviting attention to the Paper Book page 3 & 4 which contains the copy of the gift deed and the affidavit in support thereof Sh. Sanjay Mohan Agarwal submitted that Sh. Sh. Sanjay Mohan Agarwal, resident of Delhi travelled to Meerut to give the gift to the assessee and the said gift deed is witnessed by Sh. S. Tyagi, a resident of Meerut. In these circumstances, an opportunity to prove that the gift deed was handed over on the date to the assessee was requested. It was his submission that unfortunately the photocopy of the affidavit of the donor does not throw light on this aspect and since the donor expired it would not be possible to clarify the issue from that source but regardless of that the affidavit of the witness etc. can be filed and in the interests of substantial justice where the genuineness of the gift has not been doubted as the AO has only questioned the year in which it can be considered in this background the claim of the assessee that the amount have not been gifted and accepted on the specific date evidenced by Memorandum of gift wherein the only issue which as per the aforesaid finding of the CIT(A) which remained to be Page 2 of 3