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2015 (11) TMI 1451 - AT - Income TaxTDS u/s 194C OR 194J - whether services provided for payments made for supply of personnel would be technical service u/s.194J or mere contract u/s.194C? - Held that:- Taking note that the word 'technical' is preceded by the word 'managerial' and succeeded by the word 'consultancy' in CIT vs. Bharti Cellular Ltd (2008 (10) TMI 321 - DELHI HIGH COURT) held that the rule of noscitur a sociis is clearly applicable and this would mean that the word 'technical' would take colour from the words 'managerial' and 'consultancy' in between which it is sandwiched. Elaborating further, the Delhi High Court observed that it is obvious that the expression 'manager' and consequently 'managerial service' has a definite human element attached to it and similarly, the services 'consultancy' also necessarily intends human intervention. It was held by the Delhi High Court that the expression 'technical services' thus necessarily involves 'human element' or what is now a days fashionably called 'human interface'. In the case of Bharti Cellular Ltd (supra) before the Delhi High Court, the facility provided by MTNL and other companies to the assessee for interconnection/port access was one which was provided technically by the machines and since it did not involve any human interface, the Delhi High Court held that the same could not be regarded as 'technical services' as contemplated under S.194J of the Act. It is worthwhile to note that the decision of the Delhi High Court in the case of Bharti Cellular Ltd (supra) was challenged by the Revenue before the Supreme Court, and although the Supreme Court in the judgment reported in [2010 (8) TMI 332 - Supreme Court of India ], substantially agreed in principle with the meaning assigned by the Delhi High Court to the expression 'fee for technical services', as appearing in S.194J, they found that the question of human intervention was never raised even upto the level of the Tribunal. The Supreme Court also felt that some expert evidence was required to be brought on record to show how a human intervention takes place during the course of rendering of the services. The matter, therefore, was restored by the Supreme Apex Court to the file of the Assessing Officer with a direction to decide the same afresh, after examining a technical expert. However in the present case, there is no dispute that there is 'human interface' in rendering service provider to the assessee. Being so, the said decision is squarely applicable to the assessee case and there is no need to sent the file back to the Assessing Officer to decide the issue a afresh. Decided against assessee
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