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2015 (12) TMI 401 - HC - Income TaxEntitlement to benefit of Article 8 of India-Singapore DTAA - voyage of the vessel between two ports in India treated as 'international voyage' - AO came to the conclusion that such transportation between Kandla to Visag cannot be considered as international traffic as defined in DTAA and between India and Singapore - ITAT allowed claim - Held that:- The term 'international traffic', as noted, is defined to mean any transport by a ship or aircraft operated by an enterprise by a contracting state. This definition, however, has an exception clause which excludes the transport when the ship or aircraft is operated solely between the places in the other contracting state. Thus, any transaction by a ship or aircraft operated by enterprise or contracting state would be an international traffic. However, this would be not so if a ship or the aircraft is operated solely between the places in the other contracting state. If ships in question, therefore, were operated solely between Kandla and Visag, in the present case, such transport would be excluded from the definition of term 'international traffic'. Here, the word 'solely' is all important. It is not even the case of the revenue that the journey being undertaken by such vessels in question were confined between the two ports in India either routinely or even in individual isolated case. Admitted facts, as noted above, are that such transportation was undertaking during a larger journey of the vessels from Singapore to Dubai. Under such circumstances, the requirement of such journey being solely between places in the other contracting state is not satisfied. The exclusion clause of the definition of term 'international traffic', therefore, would not apply. In other words, the transport, which was otherwise in the nature of international traffic, would be so treated in terms of Clause (h) of Article 3 of the DTAA. We see no error in the view of the Tribunal. - Decided against revenue.
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