2017 (7) TMI 371 - HC - Income Tax

Reopening of assessment - reasons to believe - accommodation entries addition - Held that:- In the present case, the Court is unable to discern the link between the tangible material and the formation of the reasons to believe that income had escaped assessment. In the present case too, the information received from the Investigation Wing cannot be said to be tangible material per se without a further inquiry being undertaken by the AO. In the present case the AO deprived himself of that opportunity by proceeding on the erroneous premise that Assessee had not filed a return when in fact it had.

To compound matters further the in the assessment order the AO has, instead of adding a sum of ₹ 78 lakh, even going by the reasons for reopening of the assessment, added a sum of ₹ 1.13 crore. On what basis such an addition was made has not been explained.

This Court is satisfied that no error was committed by the ITAT in holding that reopening of the assessment under Section 147 of the Act was bad in law. - Decided in favour of assessee.