IN THE INCOME TAX APPELLATE TRIBUNAL DELHI BENCH: ‘ E ’ : NEW DELHI

ITA No. 2588/Del/2012
Assessment Year: 2008-09
Income Tax Officer (Appellant) Vs. M/s. Northern India Transport (Respondent)
Date of Order : 28-10-2015

ORDER

PER INTURI RAMA RAO, A.M.:
This appeal by the Revenue is directed against the order of ld. CIT(A), dated 01.12.2011 passed for the assessment year 2008-09. The Revenue raised the following grounds of appeal:

i. Weather on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the Ld. CIT(A) was correct in deleting the addition of Rs. 63,52,021/- on the ground that the above income belonged to the firm by the name of M/s Northern Indian Transport Company and not the assessee company.

ii. Whether on the facts & in the circumstances of the case, the Ld. CIT(A) has correctly held that there was only one firm on the given address and which had already offered for taxation its income in the status of the firm and there was no separate company on the said address.

iii. Whether on the facts & in the circumstances of the case, the Ld. CIT(A) was correct in ignoring the fact that the department was in possession of specific TDS information in the form of Form 26AS which concluded that the assessee company had earned income of Rs. 1,27,04,042/-. It is also to be noted that income reflected in assessee company’s Form 26AS is not reflected in Firm’s 26AS and therefore, it is not a question of double taxation.

iv. The department craves to be allowed to add any fresh grounds of appeal and/or delete or demand any of the grounds of appeal.

2. The brief facts of the case are that the respondent assessee is a partnership company. It is engaged in the business of transport under the name and style of Northern India Transport Company, 8551, Gulshan Guest House, 2nd Floor, Roshanara Road, Delhi-07 and has been allotted PAN No. AAFFN0106P. The return of income for the assessment year 2008-09 was filed on 30th September, 2008, declaring income of Rs. 17,50,137/-. The return of income was processed under Section 143(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (for short “the Act”) and further subjected to rectification proceeding under Section 154 of the Act vide order dated 5th May, 2010. While the matter stood thus, the respondent assessee company was served assessment order in the name of M/s Northern Transport Company dated 28th December, 2011 along with the notice of demand in original. The respondent assessee mentioned that the assessment order did not belong to him as neither the name& address of the assessee, nor permanent account number belong to him. In the circumstances, he filed an appeal in the name of M/s Northern India Transport Company before the CIT(A) who vide para 3 of his order dated 01.12.2011, deleted the assessment and allowed the appeal as follows:

“ 3.0 I have carefully considered the facts of the case, the submissions of the AO in the remand report and the contentions of the AR of the appellant. The name of the appellant mentioned in the assessment order is M/s Northern Transport Company with permanent account number as system, it was found that this PAN has been allotted to the entity Northern India Transport Co, 8551, Gulshan Guest House, Roshnara Road, New Delhi-l10007 and the status has been mentioned as 'company'. Similarly, the PAN No. AAFFNOI06P has also been allotted to M/s Northern India Transport Company, 8551, Gulshan Guest House, Roshnara Road, New Delhi-l 10007, the only difference being that the status has been shown as 'firm'. Therefore it does appear to be a case of double allotment of PAN to the same entity M/s Northern India Transport Company, which happens to be a firm and not a company. Accordingly the assessing officer of Range-13 did not have jurisdiction to assess this entity. The firm by the name "M/s Northern India Transport Company" had already filed its return of income for the A.Y. under appeal with the A.O. having jurisdiction over it and has also been assessed by that A.O., namely, ACIT Circle 20(1), New Delhi. The assessment order passed by the ITO, Ward 13 (3) is, therefore, held to be null and void, being without jurisdiction. As regards the contention of the appellant that the notices issued by the ITO, Ward 13(3) were never received, the AO in the remand report has averred that two notices-dated 16-09-2010 and 14-12-2010 were sent to the correct address. However copies of these notices were not enclosed by the AO with the remand report, as claimed. The assessment records were called for from the ward 13(3) and on perusal of the same, it is seen that the notice u/s 142(1) dated 16.09.20 10 was issued to M/s Northern India Transport Co., 8551, Gulshan Guest House, Roshanara Road, Delhi-I 1 0007 and the notice u/s 142(1) dated 14.12.20 10 was issued to Mls Northern Transport Co., 8551, Gulshan Guest House, Roshanara Road, New Delhi-I I 0007. As already discussed above, the name and address mentioned on the assessment order and the notice of demand are 'M/s Northern Transport Company, 851, Gulshan Guest House, Roshnara Road, New Delhi-llOOOT where as on the penalty notice the name is 'M/s Northern Transport Company Limited' and on the ITNS ISO, it is 'M/s Northern Transport Company Private Limited', the address being '851, Gulshan Guest House, Roshanara Road, New Delhi-11000T. Thus apparently, the ITO, Ward 13 (3) appears to have proceeded without clarity either about the correct name or the correct address of the entity he was assessing. It has also been submitted by the AR of the appellant that the total receipts declared by it and the TDS thereon far exceeded those mentioned in the information received by the ITO, Ward 13 (3), on the basis of which he framed the ex parte assessment (the information received by the assessing officer from the Hqrs, Co-ordination- in the assessment folder received from ward 13 (3)). In any case, for the reasons given by me in the first para of my findings above, the assessment order passed by the ITO, Ward 13(3) is held to be null and void Ground no. 2 of the appeal is allowed. Since ground no.2 of the appeal is allowed, ground nos. 3 and 4 are not being adjudicated upon. ”

3. On perusal of the order of ld. CIT(A), we do not find any reason to interfere with the same. Accordingly, the appeal filed by the Revenue is dismissed.

4. In the result, the appeal is dismissed.

The decision is pronounced in the open court on 28th October, 2015.

Sd/-                                                                  Sd/-
(SUDHANSHU SRIVASTAVA)             (INTURI RAMA RAO)
JUDICIAL MEMBER                            ACCOUNTANT MEMBER