Home Case Index All Cases Income Tax Income Tax + HC Income Tax - 2012 (9) TMI HC This
Forgot password New User/ Regiser ⇒ Register to get Live Demo
2012 (9) TMI 405 - CALCUTTA HIGH COURTDisallowance of business expenditure - car hire, printing, hire of manpower and sampling and display of the goods dealt - Plea of violation of natural justice - Held that:- As repeated opportunities to the appellant assessee to disclose the identity of the said entities and/or to bring them before the AO had yielded no result. Undoubtedly it was the initial burden of the assessee to establish the identity of such persons and/or to produce them to support its claim. The assessee having failed to do so the AO had no alternative but to make enquiries in the bank accounts of those entities to establish their identities. However, such effort also proved futile inasmuch as neither any address was given in the said account opening forms nor there was no introducer to such account. Thus it cannot be said that enquiries made by the inspector in respect of the bank accounts of those entities were in violation of principle of natural justice or caused any prejudiced to the assessee. As the assessee supplied cigarettes for display and sampling but had admitted they had no record of the individual shops where such distributions were made. If that is so, no purpose would be served in remanding the case after a lapse of almost two decades for production of self-same evidence which the assessee expressed inability to produce during the assessment proceeding - the issue as to whether such expenses were necessary or not in terms of the commercial expediency under section 37 (1) would arise only after the assessee had discharged its initial onus to prima facie establish such claim. If the assessee had failed to discharge its primary onus to establish such claim as in the present case, the question as to its commercial expediency does not arise at all - against assessee.
|