The Commissioner Of Income Tax, Panaji Goa v. M/S Karapurkar Agro Ltd., Panaji Goa

IN THE HIGH COURT OF BOMBAY AT GOA TAX APPEAL NO. 76 OF 2006 THE COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX, PANAJI GOA. Versus ....Appellant M/S KARAPURKAR AGRO LTD., PANAJI GOA. ....Respondent Mr. S.R. Rivonkar, Advocate for the Appellant. Mr. S.M. Singbal, Advocate for the Respondent. P.C.:- -Coram:S.A.BOBDE &N. A. BRITTO, JJ.-Date:12th March, 2007 This is an appeal filed by the Department against the Order of theIncome Tax Appellate Tribunal, Panaji Bench dated 29-5-2006. From theOrder in appeal, it appears that the question before the Tribunal waspertaining to the depreciation under Chapter VI A. No depreciation hadbeen claimed by the assessee in respect of the assessment year 2001-2002under Chapter VI A. Admittedly, after 1-4-2002 the depreciation wasmade compulsory by amending Section 32 which was however notretrospective. The question therefore was whether there could be acompulsion on the assessee to claim depreciation prior to 1-4-2002. TheTribunal relied on three Judgments, namely, (1) Medley Pharmaceuticalsvs ITO 71 TTJ 326(Mum.), (2) Beta Nephthol Pvt. Ltd. vs DCIT 50 TTJ375(Indore) and (3) M/s Plastiblends India Ltd vs ITO(ITANo.4542/Mum/99 dated 10.2.2004) to hold that an assessee cannot becompelled to claim depreciation prior to the amendment of Section 32which has been brought into force from 1-4-2002. Mr. S. R. Rivonkar, the learned Counsel for the appellant submitted that the Department was entitled to ask for better particulars in respect of the depreciation even after the deletion of Section 32 w.e.f. 1-4-1988.That Section enabled the Department to grant depreciation only if theassessee had given particulars. The learned Counsel submitted thatbecause the Section is deleted the Department is still entitled to call forbetter particulars and thus compulsorily require the assessee to claimdepreciation. This point was clearly not argued before the Tribunal andwe see no reason to decide the same. Prima facie, it seems to us that thedeletion of Section 34(1) has made no difference. Nothing is shown inany provision which requires the assessee to compulsorily claimdepreciation after the deletion of Section 34(1). Indeed, the deletion of therequirement to furnish better particulars for claiming depreciation cannotbe equated with the imposition of a compulsion on an assessee to claimdepreciation. As indicated above since this point was not specificallyargued before the Tribunal we have not considered appropriate to decidethe point. Dismissed. S.A.BOBDE, J. RD. N. A. BRITTO, J.