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2023 (10) TMI 448 - AT - Income TaxBlock assessment u/s 158BC - third round of appeal - assessee made disclosure of approx. Rs. 77.69 Lacs and agreed to file the necessary return of income. However, in response to notice u/s 158BC, he filed ‘Nil’ return of income - Tribunal, vide order after considering assessee’s submissions as well as additional evidences filed by the assessee, reduced the taxable income - The impugned assessment order is not sustainable in law as the same is not in consonance with the specific directions of the Hon'ble Tribunal while remitting the matter to the assessing authority - whether AO failed to note that the assessee had filed evidences of the state revenue authorities before this Hon'ble Tribunal to show and prove his agriculture income and also the source of investments of other persons whose income and investments were sought to be included as that of the assessee, based on which this Hon'ble Tribunal deleted those additions? - argument that the additions made by AO without reference to search material should not be included in his income for the block period HELD THAT:- Upon perusal of order of Tribunal in first round, it could thus be seen that detailed factual findings have been rendered by Tribunal on each of the issue after appreciating the assessee’s submissions as well as evidences filed by the assessee before the bench. The same documents were placed by the assessee before Ld. AO in the present proceedings. However, Ld. AO rejected the same and chose to take the same stand as taken in original assessment order. Aggrieved, the assessee is before us with similar arguments and evidences. Under these circumstances, the bench concurs with the findings of Tribunal in first round and considers it fit to adopt the same adjudication in the present proceedings. In other words, the income of the assessee stand reduced as adjudicated by Tribunal in the first round. All the grounds of appeal stand disposed-off accordingly. Our aforesaid adjudication is duly supported by the order of Hon’ble Special Court acquitting the assessee and all the other accused persons. The observations of Hon’ble Supreme Court in DCIT vs. Jayachandran & Others [2018 (4) TMI 1473 - SUPREME COURT] duly support the argument of Ld. AR that the findings arrived at by the criminal court could be taken into consideration while deciding the question as to the relationship between the parties to the case. When the findings are arrived by a criminal court on the evidence and the material placed on record then in absence of anything shown to the contrary, there seems to be no reason as to why these duly proved evidence should not be relied upon by the Court. Additionally, it would also be pertinent to note that, in the first round, the additional evidences were not furnished by the assessee with respect to all the impugned issues but the same were confined to only few of the issues only as tabulated by Ld. AR Additional evidences ought to have been confronted to the AO who would be in a better position to appreciate / verify the same. This fact also strongly supports adoption of first round adjudication of the Tribunal by us. Therefore, we direct Ld. AO to determine the total income of the assessee at Rs. 64,98,721/- as per the first round of decision by Tribunal.
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