Ita/113/2015 Of Ajay Pal Singh v. Commissioner Of Income Tax Ii Chandigarh

IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA ATCHANDIGARH ITA No. 113 of 2015 (O&M)Date of decision: 31.8.2015 Ajay Pal Singh ..-.--Appell Commissioner of Income Tax II, SCO 45-47, Bassi Building, Sector17A, Chandigarh .....Responde CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE AJAY KUMAR MITTALHON’BLE MR. JUSTICEK RAMENDRA JAIN Present: Mr. Jagmohan Bansal, Advocate for the appellant-assessee. Ajay Kumar Mittal,J. 1]This appeal has been preferred by the assessee-appellant undersection 260A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (in short, “the Act’) against theorder dated 29.10.2014, Annexure A.8 passed by the Income Tax AppellateTribunal, Chandigarh in ITA No.472/CHD/2014, tor the assessment year 2009-10, claiming following substantial questions of law:- “1) Whether declared agriculture income of appellant can betreated as income from other sources when there is no evidenceof income from other sources? 11) Whether learned Tribunal is justified in rejecting evidence ofagriculture land owned by father of the appellant? lii) Whether the impugned order is perverse and contrary torecord 2 A few facts relevant for the decision of the controversy involved as narrated in the appeal may be noticed. The appellant is an ITA No.113 of 2015 (O&M)|individual. He is residing with his brother and parents at Mohali. The onlysource of income of the family is agriculture income. The appellant isearning his livelihood from agriculture proceeds. In the year 2008-09, theappellant planned to go abroad for some Young Farmers programme. Heapproached immigration consultants in Chandigarh. They asked him aboutthe income tax return. He had not filed the same because of exemption ofagriculture income. The consultants asked him to file income tax return withagriculture income of at least“a30 lacs. The appellant is having agricultureland measuring 8 acres in his name, 18 acres in the name of his mother, 57acres in the name of his father and 8 acres in the name of his brother. Thewhole land has been leased out at the rent ot LT32,000/- per acre. Theappellant, to show his income, filed income tax return for the assessmentyear 2009-10 disclosing agriculture income of=a32 lacs apart from incomefrom business and profession amounting to =a1,17,500/-, on 29.9.2009. Thereturn was processed on 30.3.2010 under section 143(1) of the Act. Noticeunder Section 143(2) of the Act was issued to the appellant. The appellantwas asked to furnish evidence with respect to agriculture income shown byhim. He was also asked to furnish detail of land holdings and copies ofForm 'J' alongwith documentary evidence. The appellant alongwith hiscounsel appeared before the Assessing Officer and submitted that he hadplanned to go abroad and as per immigration consultants, he had filed hisreturn showing agriculture income of=a3? lacs. He also disclosed landowned by him, his mother and brother. The Assessing officer vide orderdated 28.11.2011, Annexure A.1 concluded that agriculture income of theappellant was =a8,96,000/- on the basis of land holdings of his and hisfamily members. The rest of amount reported as agriculture income i.e.= ITA No.113 of 2015 (O&M) ITA No.113 of 2015 (O&M) 23,04,000/- was assessed under the head ‘income from other sources’. Itwas further held that the appellant had failed to furnish evidence to provethat he filed return on the advice of immigration consultants. Aggrieved bythe order, the assessee filed appeal before the Commissioner of Income Tax(Appeals) [CIT(A)]. The assessee contended before the CIT(A) that theAssessing Officer had failed to appreciate the provisions of section 5(1) ofthe Act. There was no evidence of investment of said income and during theperiod in question, the appellant had made deposit of only|LT3.17 lacs out ofagriculture income. Vide order dated 3.9.2013, Annexure A.4, the CIT(A)dismissed the appeal holding that no evidence had been produced to theeffect that the appellant had declared agriculture income to getimmigration/visa. The assessee went in appeal before the Tribunal. Videorder dated 29.10.2014, Annexure A.8, the Tribunal dismissed the appeal.Hence the instant appeal by the assessee, 3,We have heard learned counsel for the appellant-assessee.4Learned counsel for the appellant submitted that additionalevidence should have been allowed to show that the amount added was theagricultural income of the assessee. 5Concurrent findings have been recorded by all the threeauthorities below to the effect that whatever agricultural income wasestablished in the return of income was not earned out of agriculturaloperation but was income from other sources. The earning of agriculturalincome was not substantiated through any evidence on record before any ofthe authorities. Further, no evidence was also produced to the effect that theappellant had declared agriculture income to get immigration/Visa. Therelevant findings recorded by the Tribunal read thus:- 6 “On consideration of the rival submissions, we do not find anymerit in the appeal of the assessee. The assessee has declaredagricultural income ofv32 lacs and admitted before AssessingOfficer that assessee and his brother and mother are also havingagricultural land and their total income is arounda_10 lacs to412 lacs approximately and the share of the assessee comes to=3 lacs p.a. It would,therefore, show that whatever agriculturalincome was established in the return of income, was not earnedout of agricultural operation and was thus rightly considered bythe authorities below to be income from other sources. The onusupon assessee to prove earning of the agricultural income wasthus not substantiated through any evidence on record. Evenbefore learned CIT(Appeals), the assessee failed to substantiateregarding earning of the agricultural income. Therefore,authorities below were justified in rejecting the claim ofassessee of earning agricultural income. The assessee neverpleaded before authorities below earning of any agriculturalincome by his father. The assessee on one hand pleaded beforethe authorities below earning of the lesser agricultural incomeand has now taken a contrary stand to accept the agriculturalincome declared in the return of income by claiming that fatherof the assessee also earned agricultural income. This fact ispleaded for the first time before the Tribunal and thus cannot betaken into consideration. The assessee never made any suchclaim before the authorities below and further no proper stepshave been taken for admission of any additional evidencebefore the Tribunal. Therefore, whatever photo copies of someland holding have been filed in the paper book, cannot be takeninto consideration. Considering the totality of the facts andcircumstances and in the absence of any evidence on record infavour of the assessee, we do not find any justification tointerfere with the orders of the authorities below. The appeal ofthe assessee 1s accordingly dismissed.” Learned counsel for the appellant has not been able to show ITA No.113 of 2015 (O&M) 5 Learned counsel for the appellant has not been able to show ITA No.113 of 2015 (O&M) 5 any illegality or perversity in the concurrent findings recorded by theauthorities below. No explanation much less satisfactory explanation hadbeen furnished by learned counsel for the assessee as to the nature/relevancyof additional evidence sought to be produced and reasons for not producingthe same earlier before the authorities. No substantial question of law arises.Consequently, the appeal stands dismissed. (Ajay Kumar Mittal)Judge August 31, 2015<-%< (Ramendra Jain)Judge