Home Case Index All Cases Income Tax Income Tax + AT Income Tax - 2022 (9) TMI AT This
Forgot password New User/ Regiser ⇒ Register to get Live Demo
2022 (9) TMI 1441 - AT - Income TaxIncome allegedly escaped from returns - additions which are based on third-party statement - reliance on oral statement of one Manager (Operations) of Apollo Hospital - HELD THAT:- Assessee is a Doctor is an ENT specialist working as a consultant Doctor in Apollo Hospital. Based on search findings on Hospital, the consultation fee of the Doctor has been estimated and differential fee has been added to his professional income. The whole basis of the addition is statement of Manager (Operations) merely act as data collector and has no idea about the exact fee charged by the Doctor from each of the patient. Further, she is not authorized to collect fees for non-employee Doctors. The fee is directly collected by the assessee’s staff and such fee is not accounted for in the Hospital’s books of account. Such category of doctors has discretion to fix their own fees and they merely pay monthly rent to the Hospital. The fees so collected by them are not booked in the books of Apollo Hospital. The range of fees being charged is only an estimated one and there is no physical evidence available before her. It could also be seen that apart from this statement, there is no corroborative evidence on record to support the working of Ld. AO. The estimate has been made merely on abstract figures. As per the submission of the assessee all out patients were not charged. The certain category of patients and review patients would not be charged if they visit within 15 days of first consultation. The fee prescribed by Apollo Hospitals for Master Health Check-up patients is Rs.150/- only. This being the case, the assessee Doctor cannot be expected to charge substantially higher amount as considered by Ld. AO and therefore, the estimation as made by Ld. AO could not be upheld. Whole basis of addition is the statement of Ms. Subhadra G.[manager operations] who does not possess any concrete data except abstract figures of number of patients. There is no corroborative evidence to support that so much of fees has been collected by the assessee from the patients. The assessee has also placed on record the certificate issued by Senior Vice-President (Finance) which clearly states that "the out-patient list maintained by the Information Technology Department of Apollo Hospitals includes several types of non-billed or non-charged patients also". The same supports the submissions of the assessee. Thus it could not be accepted that the assessee would attempt to conceal income as estimated by Ld. AO. The Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of CIT vs Odeon Builders (P) Ltd [2019 (8) TMI 1072 - SUPREME COURT] has held that no addition can be made on the basis of third-party information gathered by the Investigation Wing of the Department. Decided in favour of assesse.
|