2019 (1) TMI 855 - ITAT KOLKATA

Addition u/s 68 - sale proceeds of shares as income from undisclosed sources - rejecting the assessee’s claim of Long Term Capital Gains (LTCG) on sale of those shares - Held that:- We note that at Para -18 of the assessment order AO mentions about the role of brokers in allowing entry operators to register their bogus companies as their client and also certain admission made by some brokers about their involvement in so called Jama kharchi companies. In the said para some names of few brokers and Jama Kharchi operators have been mentioned. However, we note that the name of assessee’s broker, M/s. Guiness Securities Ltd., through whom the assessee sold his shares, does not appear at all in that report.

We note that M/ s Guiness Securities Ltd was not named in the assessment order / D.I. report as a broker who was involved in price rigging of penny stocks. On the other hand, we note that M/s. Guiness Securities Ltd is a SEBI registered stock broking company having registration no. INB 011146033 and also is a member of Bombay Stock Exchange having membership no. 3027; Neither during the time of execution of the contract in FY 2013-14 nor even today, this stock-broking company was suspended by SEBI or BSE on any charge of irregularities like price rigging etc as alleged by the AO. We note that AO failed to bring on record any material to connect the assessee to any of the alleged entry operators/ brokers who are a part of this so called price rigging group or LTCG Generator Group.

We note that in an identical/similar case, wherein the AO made addition of the LTCG claim made on sale of M/s. KAFL scrips on similar reasoning based on the SEBI interim report, investigation report of the Wing of the Department and certain statements recorded by the Department in the case of Sanjiv Shroff Vs. ACIT [2019 (1) TMI 213 - ITAT KOLKATA] it is also a matter of record that the assessee furnished all evidences in the from of bills, contract notes, demat statements and the bank accounts to prove the genuineness of the transactions relating to purchase and sale of shares resulting in LTCG. These evidences were neither found by the AO to be false or fabricated.

The facts of the case and the evidences in support of the assessee’s case clearly support the claim of the assessee that the transactions of the assessee were bonafide and genuine and therefore the AO was not justified in rejecting the assessee’s claim of exemption under section 10(38) of the Act. AO was not justified in assessing the sale proceeds of shares of KAFL as undisclosed income of the assessee u/s 68 of the Act. - Decided in favour of the assessee.