Commissioner Of Income Tax, Gandhingar v. Nimaben Parmodkumar Patel

IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD R/TAX APPEAL No. 442 of 2018 ============================================================= COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX, GANDHINGARVersusNIMABEN PARMODKUMAR PATEL ============================================================= Appearance :Mrs MAUNA M BHATT, Advocate for the PETITIONER for the RESPONDENT(s) No. 1 ============================================================= CORAM: HONOURABLE Mr. JUSTICE AKIL KURESHIandHONOURABLE Mr. JUSTICE B.N. KARIA5[th] May 2018 ORAL ORDER (PER : HONOURABLE Mr. JUSTICE AKIL KURESHI) Revenue is in appeal against the judgment of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Ahmedabad [“Tribunal” for short] dated 31[st] July 2017, raising following question for our consideration : “Whether the Appellate Tribunal has erred in law and on facts of the case in deleting the penalty of Rs. 29,68,908/= levied by the AO under Section 271 [1](c) of the Income-tax Act ?” The issue pertains to penalty under Section 271 [1](c) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 which the Assessing Officer imposed, but CIT [A] and the Tribunal deleted, relying on the Tribunal’s order in similar cases of an assessee of the same family. Against such judgment, Tax Appeal No. 1051 of 2017 filed by the Revenue came to be dismissed by an order dated 12[th] February 2018, making following observations : “2.The issue pertains to penalty under section 271(1)(c) of the Act. The assessee had filed the return of income, in which, he had not offered to tax capital gain arising out of sale of agricultural land. When this was noticed by the Assessing Officer, the assessee corrected his position and unconditionally offered to pay tax on such income. Simultaneously, other co-owners of the land who had similarly not disclosed the income in their returns, also paid their taxes. 3.In the penalty proceedings, the defense of the assessee was that he was under bona-fide impression that such income was not assessable to capital gain since it was arose out of sale of agricultural land. He claimed that he was guided by his Chartered Accountant and carried such mistake and belief. This defense was accepted by the Tribunal and penalty was dropped. 4.The explanation of the assessee was thus found reasonable and accepted by the Tribunal and viewed from attendant circumstances including the fact that the other co-owners also promptly corrected their position vis-a-vis taxability of income. 5.No question of law arises. Tax Appeal is dismissed.” In the result, this Tax Appeal is also dismissed. [Akil Kureshi, J.] Prakash [B.N Karia, J.]