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2019 (7) TMI 1313 - ITAT MUMBAIAddition u/s 68 - unsecured cash credit - authenticity of the loan transactions under consideration - Addition based on search proceedings conducted on accommodation entry provider and their statement - HELD THAT:- assessee placed on record supporting documentary evidence viz. (i) copies of the returns of the lender companies; (ii) copies of their audited financial statements; (iii) copies of the bank accounts of the lender companies; and (iv) the ‘affidavits’ of the principle officers of the lender companies, wherein they had confirmed the loan transactions. On a perusal of the bank accounts of the aforementioned lender companies, all of which we find were being assessed to income tax, therein revealed that there was no immediate cash deposits in their respective bank accounts in order to facilitate advancing of the loans to the assessee. In nutshell it is neither the case of the revenue, nor a fact borne from the records, that the assessee had routed his own money in the garb of the unsecured loans raised from the aforementioned parties. As observed by the CIT(A), the assessee had also deducted tax at source at the time of payment/crediting of the interest on the loans raised from the aforementioned companies. Accordingly, in the backdrop of the aforesaid facts, we are of a strong conviction that the assessee had sufficiently discharged the ‘onus’ that was cast upon him as regards proving the authenticity of the loan transactions under consideration. A.O except for harping on the fact that the assessee had raised the loans from the companies which were controlled by Shri Praveen Kumar Jain, had absolutely done nothing which would conclusively prove that no genuine loans were raised by the assessee from the aforesaid companies. On the contrary, the notices which were issued by the A.O under Sec.133(6) to the aforementioned companies, wherein they were called to share certain information viz. nature of activities of the lender companies, source for giving the loans etc., were duly complied with by the said concerns and the requisite documents were placed on the record of the A.O by the aforementioned companies. We find that the A.O who ought to have made necessary verifications as regards the authenticity of the loan transactions by summoning the principal officers of the aforementioned companies u/s 131, and also carrying out field inquiries/investigations as regards the identity and creditworthiness of the investor companies, and also the genuineness of the transactions, had however, not even done the bare minimum. We find, that the CIT(A) observing that as the assessee had duly discharged the ‘onus’ that was cast upon him under Sec. 68 for proving the authenticity of the loan transactions, therefore, in the absence of any ‘material’ placed on record by the A.O to dislodge the said duly substantiated claim of the assessee, there was no occasion for him to have to re-characterised the loans raised by the assessee as accommodation entries. - Decided in favour of assessee.
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