Commissioner Of Incometax- Central-3 v. Praveen Juneja

$~10 *IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI+ITA 56/2017 COMMISSIONER OF INCOMETAX- CENTRAL-3 ..... Appellant Through :Mr. Ruchir Bhatia and Mr. PuneetRai, Advs. Versus PRAVEEN JUNEJA ..... Respondent Through :None. CORAM:JUSTICE S.MURALIDHARJUSTICE PRATHIBA M. SINGH O R D E R14.07.2017 % CM No. 2766/2017 (Exemption) 1. Allowed, subject to all just exceptions. ITA 56/2017 2. This is an appeal by the Revenue against the order dated 29[th]July, 2016passedtheIncomeTaxAppellateTribunal(‘ITAT’)inITANo.3032/Del/2012 for the Assessment Year (‘AY’) 2004-05. 3. The Revenue is aggrieved by the order of ITAT whereby it deleted theaddition of Rs. 80,50,000 to the income of the Respondent/Assessee by theAssessing Officer (‘AO’), which order was affirmed by the Commissionerof Income Tax (Appeals) [‘CIT (A)’]. 4. A search took place in the premises of the Respondent/Assessee pursuant to which certain documents were seized. The document on the basis ofwhich the above addition was made was a piece of paper dated 24[th]November, 2003. It contained a hand-written figure of '8050'. In twocolumns it set out details of purportedly expenses on drive way, tennis court,garden lights etc. in the left column totalling '9.45' and some other expensesrelating to the architect, wooden fittings, bathroom fittings, etc. in the rightcolumn totalling '13.45'. 5. The explanation offered by the Assessee was that he was a director ofOmaxe Ltd., a company in the construction business. He sought to explainthat the said paper containing estimates in relation to the Omaxe Plazaproject of the company was with him in that capacity. The CIT (A) rejectedthe above explanation on the ground that seized document nowherecontained the name Omaxe Ltd. Since the said document had been seizedfrom the residence of Assessee, the CIT (A) drew a presumption underSection 292C of the Act was that it belonged to him. Further, the CIT(A)proceeded on the basis that the figure of '8050' was in fact Rs. 80,50,000 andconstituted the unexplained income of the Assessee since the Assessee hadnot submitted any evidence like a confirmation letter or any other documentto show that expenditure related to Omaxe Ltd. 6. The ITAT in the impugned order noted that the document was “silent asto the payer and payee of the amount in question nor does it disclose that thepayment was made by cheque or cash nor it is proved that the document is inthe handwriting of assessee or at least bears his signatures.” 7. In the considered view of the Court, the addition of Rs.80,50,000 merelyon the basis of a single document without making any further enquiry wasnot justified. No attempt was made by the AO to find out if in fact itconstituted estimates relating the construction of project of Omaxe Ltd. 8. In the circumstances, the impugned order of the ITAT suffers from nolegal infirmity and does not give rise to any substantial question of law. 9. The appeal is, accordingly, dismissed. S.MURALIDHAR, J JULY 14, 2017dk PRATHIBA M. SINGH, J