TMI Blog1994 (5) TMI 50X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... -tax Officer primarily on the ground that the 28 days off period was related to the period of 28 days when the appellants were working on the rigs in the Indian waters and the said off period was an outcome of the duties performed on the rigs. In other words, the view taken by the Income-tax Officer was that even if the appellants were outside India for sometime during the contract period and the said period outside India was utilised by the parent company for some other work outside India, the salary pertaining thereto would become taxable in India as the service contract between the appellants and the parent company related to the "Indian job". In the final analysis, the Income-tax Officer included in the assessments of each of the appellants the off period salary which had been claimed as exempt. On further appeals the Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals) upheld the view taken by the Income-tax Officer on identical grounds and passed separate orders in this respect. 4. It is in the aforesaid circumstances that the present appeals have come up for hearing before the Tribunal. We have heard both the parties at considerable length in respect of the common ground raised in all the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... invited to the fact that the Tribunal had been consistently following the aforesaid order in all the subsequent appeals decided by it in respect of the employees/technicians of Atwood Oceanics International and that being the situation, it was not at all necessary to re-decide or review the matter in the light of some decisions which had been passed by the Tribunal taking a view to the contrary, but with reference to the terms of the contract in those cases. 6. In support of the aforesaid arguments, the learned counsel relied on the various decisions of the Tribunal appended by her on the paper-book. On the question of following the aforesaid orders without there being a change in the facts she placed reliance on the decision of the Hon'ble Madras High Court in the case of CIT v. L. G. Ramamurthi [1977] 110 ITR 453 and another decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Hari Singh v. State of Haryana [1993] (66) ELT 23. 7. The learned Departmental Representative, on the other hand, supported the action of the tax authorities in rejecting the claim made by the appellant in the course of the proceedings before the said authorities. According to her the 28 days off period ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ered. At the outset, we would refer to the decision of the Hon'ble Calcutta High Court in the case of Grindlays Bank Ltd. relied upon by the learned Departmental Representative in support of the argument that the salary paid for the "off period" spent by the employees technicians outside India was subject to tax under the tax laws of India and further to canvass that the Tribunal should depart from the view taken by it in the earlier decisions pertaining to the technicians of Atwood Oceanics International. After perusing at length the aforesaid decision of the Hon'ble Calcutta High Court, we are of the view that the same is not applicable to the facts of the assessee's case. The question involved in that case was whether the "furlough pay" to which the expatriate office workers of the bank in India were entitled to in pound-sterling in U.K. after working for the bank in India for a specified period was liable for T. D. S. in India on the ground that the same accrued or arose in India. The term "furlough" as defined in Webster's Third New International Dictionary means "leave of absence" whereas we in the present appeals are dealing with the period of 28 days which the assessees/tec ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... onality of the officers presiding over the Tribunal or participating in the hearing by the Tribunal as an institution. If it is to be conceded that simply because of the change in the personnel of the officers who manned the Tribunal it is open to the new officers to come to a conclusion totally contradictory to the conclusion which had been reached by the earlier officers manning the same Tribunal on the same set of facts, it will not only shake the confidence of the public in judicial procedure as such, but it will also totally destroy such confidence. The result of this will be conclusions based on arbitrariness and whims and fancies of the individuals presiding over the courts or the Tribunals and not reached objectively on the basis of the facts placed before the authorities. If a Bench of a Tribunal on the identical facts is allowed to come to a conclusion directly opposed to the conclusion reached by another Bench of the Tribunal on an earlier occasion, that will be destructive of the institutional integrity itself." 12. The learned counsel for the assessees relied upon the aforesaid two decisions for the proposition that since earlier Benches of the Tribunal had interpret ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... quent occasions various Division Benches of the Tribunal took a similar view and to mention few such decisions :--- (i) R. Macweigh v. ITO [IT Appeal No. 5261 (Delhi) of 1989], (ii) T. Landreth v. ITO [IT Appeal No. 5634 (Delhi) of 1989], (iii) M. Knight v. ITO [IT Appeal No. 5253 (Delhi) of 1989], and (iv) K. Repper v. ITO [IT Appeal No. 5251 (Delhi) of 1989]. 15. We would also like to mention that the Department has placed reliance on the S.M.C. decision of one of the technicians of Halliburton Offshore Services Inc. and which, according to them, has taken a view in favour of the Revenue. In our opinion, the aforesaid decision would not advance the Revenue's case in the present set of appeals as the technicians are those of a different company, namely M/s. Atwood Oceanics International and whose terms of contract have already been interpreted by the Tribunal in earlier decisions particulars of which we have given in the preceding paras. We are not inclined to review our decision in the absence of change of facts and more so in the light of an order of the Tribunal in a different case whose facts are entirely different. As already stated while referring to the arguments ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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