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2002 (3) TMI 217

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..... on 143(3) of the Act was framed on23-3-1992in which income was assessed at Rs.47,74,667 under section 115J of the Act. The CIT, Delhi-III,New Delhiafter going through the assessment record for the year under consideration came to the conclusion that assessment order under section 143(3) of the Act is erroneous insofar as it was prejudicial to the interest of revenue. He proceeded to take action under section 263 of the Act and issued the following notice to the assessee on5-3-1993: "Assessment in your case for assessment year 1989-90 was completed under section 143(3) on 22-3-1992 on total income of Rs.47,72,667 i.e. 30% of the book profit of Rs.1,59,15,556. A perusal of records shows that the above said order under section 143(3) is erroneous insofar as it is prejudicial to the interests of revenue for the reasons mentioned below:-- You have claimed deduction of Rs.4,07,35,775 under section 80HHD of the Act from your book profit of Rs.5,66,51,332. This deduction under section 80HHD has been claimed on the basis of foreign exchange receipts shown at Rs.28,63,38,220 which also included the following amount:-- -------------------------------------------------------------- ( .....

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..... e foreign exchange as given out in section 2(b) of FERA 1973 and contended that the receipt of convertible foreign exchange has to be in lieu of services provided to foreign tourists and that also includes amount received by the assessee from travel agents for services rendered to foreign tourists and further includes amount received consequent to foreign exchange being converted by the Hotel. It was the case of the assessee that every foreign tourist is expected to make payment to a hotel in foreign exchange as per Government's Notification No. F-1/64/EC/80 dated 20-8-1981 and in case any foreign national on visit to India had paid foreign exchange to an airline or to a travel agent holding licence granted by the RBI under section 32 of the Act and made payment in Indian currency accompanied with certificate by airline or travel agent confirming that payment made out of rupee funds obtained out of the conversion of foreign exchange by airline or travel agent than such payment are to be deemed as payment in convertible foreign exchange. The assessee further relied upon section 5 of the Expenditure Tax Act, 1987 read with Rule 4 of the Expenditure Tax Rules, 1987 and claimed that fo .....

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..... ncession or exemption to the Indian recipients. He further observed that Assessing Officer was not justified in accepting the explanation of the assessee on that point in utter disregard to the Circular No. 621 dated19-12-1991issued by CBDT which clarifies the situation for the period prior to1-4-1992. The ld. CIT reproduced the relevant paras of that circular and observed that in the year under consideration, the benefit of Explanation added to sub-section (2) of section 80HHD cannot be given to assessee as intention of Legislature was to extend the benefit from assessment year 1992-93 onwards as clarified by CBDT in that Circular. He further noted that before the addition of Explanation to section 80HHD(2) the benefit was available to first recipient of foreign exchange. 4. So far as the amount of foreign exchange converted by the assessee as Restricted Money Changer, the ld. CIT noted that assessee had admitted not to have earned any profit out of this service allegedly rendered to foreign tourists. The activity of money changing was not part of business of the assessee but it was statutory requirement under FERA, 1973 and for getting recognition as 5 Star Hotels. The CIT furt .....

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..... aken up by the assessee before the ld. CIT. The ld. counsel for the assessee took up the first plea in respect of amount of Rs.4,03,09,863 received by the assessee in Indian currency from agents of foreign tourists out of foreign exchange received by those agents. Our attention was drawn to the definition of 'convertible foreign exchange' given in the Explanation (b) to section 80HHD which provides that definition of above shall be the same as is given in Explanation (a) of section 80HHC. The section 80HHC Explanation (1) provides that 'convertible foreign exchange' means foreign exchange which is for the time being treated by the Reserve Bank of India as convertible foreign exchange for the purpose of FERA, 1973 and any rules made thereunder. The ld. representative further pointed out that 'foreign exchange' had been defined in section 2(b) of FERA, as Under:-- "(i) all deposits, credits and balances payable in any foreign currency and any drafts, travellers cheques, letter of credit and bills of exchange, expressed or drawn in Indian currency but payable in any foreign currency; (ii) any instrument payable, at the option of the drawee or holder thereof or any other party ther .....

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..... he services to the foreign tourists and the basic source of earning the foreign exchange. Accordingly, that Explanation is to be given effect with retrospective effect and to be treated that said Explanation was from the date when section 80HHD was brought to the statute. 7. In support of the above plea, the ld. counsel for the assessee has placed reliance on the decision of CIT v. Podar Cement (P.) Ltd. [1997] 226 ITR 625 in which Their Lordships of Honourable Supreme Court have laid down that presumption against retrospective operation is not applicable to declaratory statutes. A declaratory Act may be defined as an Act to remove doubts existing as to the common law, or the meaning or effect of any statute. Such Acts are usually held to be retrospective. The usual reason for passing a declaratory Act is to set aside what parliament deems to have been a judicial error, whether in the statement of the common law or in the interpretation of statutes. An Explanatory Act is generally passed to supply an obvious omission or to clear up doubts as to the meaning of the previous Act. It is well-settled that if a statute is curative or merely declaratory of the previous law, retrospectiv .....

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..... essed into service for interpreting the provisions of any particular statute and reliance was placed on the decision of Bombay High Court in the case of CWT v. State Bank of India [1995] 213 ITR 1. On the basis of that it was contended that deeming provisions of FERA, 1973 and that of Expenditure Tax Act, 1987 r/w rule 4 of Expenditure Tax Rules 1987 cannot be used for interpretation of the provisions of section 80HHD as those provisions are meant for those Acts. It was also the contention of the ld. DR that CIT was justified in ignoring the provisions of Expenditure Tax Act r/w rule 4 of the Expenditure Tax Rules, 1987 on the ground that those provisions provides a benefit of claiming exemption to foreign national to pay in Indian currency to hotels etc. out of Indian currency received by them after foreign exchange converted by their agents/tour operators. This exemption cannot be pressed into service to extend to claim any benefit of section 80HHD to the assessee who has to win or loose only when he complies the requirement of section 80HHD. 10. The ld. DR submitted that Explanation (2) to sub-section (2) of section 80HHD was not clarificatory/declaratory in nature but it has .....

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..... 1. About the other amount of Rs.5,27,22,837 received by assessee as foreign exchange for conversion, the same was the submission of the ld. DR as were taken by CIT. It was pleaded that no services were rendered by the assessee to earn foreign exchange but it was necessary for assessee to act as Restricted Money Changer to claim the status of Five Star Hotels. The facility of Money Changer being extended by the assessee to foreign tourists cannot be regarded as service. Apart from it, even if it is treated as service then the assessee had not received any profit out of it nor it has been included in the profit and loss account. It was also the contention of the ld. DR that provisions of section 80HHD(1)(b) had not complied with by the assessee as deduction under section 80HHD can be extended if remaining profits referred to in clause (a) are debited to the profit and loss account of the previous year in respect of which the deduction is to be allowed and credited to the reserve account to be utilised for the purpose of the business of assessee and in the case in hand admittedly no amount had passed through profit and loss account. Further inviting our attention to section 80AB the l .....

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..... perator during the previous year relevant to any of the said assessment years. (2) This section applies only to services provided foreign tourists the receipts in relation to which are received within a period of six months from the end of the previous year or, where the Chief Commissioner or Commissioner is satisfied (for reasons to be recorded in writing) that the assessee is, for reasons beyond his control, unable to do so within the said period of six months, within such further period as the Chief Commissioner or Commissioner may allow in this behalf. By Finance (No. 2) Act, 1991, the following Explanation and sub-section (2A) was added w.e.f.1-4-1992: Explanation.--For the purposes of this sub-section, any payment received by an assessee, engaged in the business of a hotel or of a tour operator or of a travel agent, in Indian currency obtained by conversion of foreign exchange brought into India through an authorised dealer (from another hotelier, tour operator or travel agent, as the case may be) on behalf of a foreign tourist or group of foreign tourists, shall be deemed to have been received by the assessee in convertible foreign exchange if the person making the payme .....

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..... l, or as an approved tour operator or a travel agent is allowed a deduction, in computing its total income, of an amount equal to-- (i) 50 per cent of the profits derived from services provided to foreign tourists, payment for which is received in convertible foreign exchange; and (ii) so much of the remaining profits referred to above as are credited to a reserve fund to be utilised for the purpose of the business of the taxpayer in the prescribed manner. The amount credited to the reserve account may be utilised for any of the specified purposes within a period of five years following the year in which the amount is credited to the reserve accounts. In many cases, the foreign tourists visitIndiaon a package tour and make a lump sum payment, in foreign exchange, to a tour operator inIndia. The Indian tour operator, thereafter, makes payments to the hotels where the tourist groups are lodged. Since the foreign exchange is received only by the tour operator, it is only he who can claim the tax concession under section 80HHD. The hotel owner is denied the benefit of section 80HHD, even though the payment for service to the foreign tourists rendered by the hotel may constitute the .....

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..... licable to declaratory statutes. As stated in Crains and approved by the Supreme Court: for modern purposes a declaratory Act may be defined as an Act to remove doubts existing as to the common law, or the meaning or effect of any statute. Such Acts are usually held to be retrospective. The usual reason for passing a declaratory Act is to set aside what Parliament deems to have been a judicial error, whether in the statement of the common law or in the interpretation of statutes. Usually, if not invariably, such an Act contains a preamble, and also the word 'declared' as well as the word 'enacted'. But the use of the words 'it is declared' is not conclusive that the Act is declaratory for these words may, at times, be used to introduce new rules of law and the Act in the latter case will only be amending the law and will not necessarily be retrospective. In determining, therefore, the nature of the Act, regard must be had to the substance rather than to the form. If a new Act is 'to explain' an earlier Act, it would be without object unless construed retrospective. An explanatory Act is generally passed to supply an obvious omission or to clear up doubts as to the meaning of the pr .....

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..... the Legislature by subsequent Finance Act, 1994 which had provided the proportionate amount on which deduction can be claimed by tour operators, agents of foreign tourists and hotels. It shows that the intention of the Legislature was clear as it has provided benefits to hotels who used to receive Indian currency from tour operators or tour agents of foreign tourists out of foreign exchange received by those persons from foreign tourists and thus the explanation was applicable from the date it came into operation i.e. 1-4-1992 and was not having retrospective operation. 13. Even if for the sake of argument, we presume that that adding of Explanation and sub-section (2A) to the existing provisions of section 80HHD were having retrospective effect and be taken as existing on statute from the date when original provision of section 80HHD were brought in the Income-tax then there will be various difficulties. If assessee is allowed to claim benefit under section 80HHD in view of the Explanation so added and treated to be retrospective in nature, then already audit of the assessee for assessment year 1989-90 was over and if he wants to claim benefit then he was required to give certi .....

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..... s for its hotel, it was essential pre-requisite for the assessee to obtain Restricted Money Changing licence and to provide this facility to foreign tourists. Accordingly, this is not a sort of service but it is a facility which is embedded in the assessee on account of its 5 star status. 15. Apart from it, it is admitted fact that the assessee had not included that amount on this conversion of foreign exchange into Indian currency to their profit and loss account. Section 80AB of the Act provides that deduction under Chapter VI-A can only be allowed if the income of the nature specified in that section in which claim is made, is included in the gross total income of the assessee. In the case in hand, the assessee has not included this amount of Rs.5,27,22,837 to its gross total income and thus the CIT(A) was justified in treating this amount as not eligible for claiming deduction under section 80HHD. 16. As observed earlier, claim of the assessee can only be allowed for deduction under section 80HHD if all conditions under the provisions of that section have been fulfilled. Under section 80HHD(1) 50% of the profit derived from him from services provided to foreign tourists are .....

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..... a judicial error, whether in the statement of the common law or in the interpretation of statutes. Usually, if not invariably, such an Act contains a preamble, and also the word 'declared' as well as the word 'enacted'. But the use of the words 'it is declared' is not conclusive that the Act is declaratory for these words may, at times, be used to introduce new rules of law and the Act in the latter case will only be amending the law and will not necessarily be retrospective. In determining, therefore, the nature of the Act regard must be had to the substance rather than to the form. If a new Act is 'to explain' an earlier Act, it would be without object unless construed retrospective. An explanatory Act is generally passed to supply an obvious omission or to clear up doubts as to the meaning of the previous Act. It is well settled that if a statute is curative or merely declaratory of the previous law retrospective operation is generally intended. The language 'shall be deemed always to have meant' is declaratory, and is in plain terms retrospective. In the absence of clear words indicating that the amending Act is declaratory, it would not be so construed when the pre-amended pr .....

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..... plug the loophole the Parliament inserted Explanation and also section 2A by the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1991. The amended section is intended to ensure proper sharing of the benefit by the entitled persons. In the case of tour operator or a travel agent, he will be allowed to retain the amount to the extent it was earned by him for the services rendered. The remaining amount transferred to the Hotels for the services provided by them will also be entitled for benefit of the deduction under section 80HHD in the hands of the Hotel. Keeping in view the above intentions of the Parliament, it is seen that the original unamended section has not been correctly interpreted resulting in unintended benefit to one party at the cost of the other. There is also possibility of giving benefit much in excess of the intended benefit by the Legislature. That is, giving benefit to the first recipient and the person who actually rendered the entitled services. There is, therefore, ambiguity in the provisions and it is possible to interpret the provision in such a way so as to give benefit to both the parties. To make clear the intentions, the present Explanation has been inserted. It is, therefore, in .....

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..... tter, we hold that the Commissioner was not justified in denying the deduction under section 80HHD on the receipt from agents of foreign tourist in Indian currency amounting to Rs.4,03,09,863 for services rendered to the foreign tourists. With regard to the provisions of sub-section (2A) inserted by the said Finance Act, I am of the view that this is only a machinery provision for allowing the correct amount of deduction under the above section. In this particular case, there is no doubt about the genuineness of the services and the payments received by the assessee. The mere machinery provisions will not deprive the assessee of its right to have the deduction, if the said deduction is entitled under the amended provisions. The learned Commissioner also did not invoke this provision for setting aside the order of the Assessing Officer and the question is to be limited to the legal aspect of the entitlement. With regard to the claim of deduction under the above section in regard to foreign exchange, converted by the assessee as an authorised money changer amounting to Rs.5,27,22,837, we are of the view that the same cannot be considered for deduction under the above section. Since .....

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..... on that the said assessment order was erroneous insofar as it was prejudicial to the interest of Revenue and he, therefore, issued a notice under section 263 to the assessee on5-3-1993. The said notice is reproduced at page 2 of the order of the Tribunal and a perusal thereof shows that deduction under section 80HHD had been initially claimed on foreign exchange receipts amounting to Rs.28,63,38,220, which included the following two amounts:-- -------------------------------------------------------------- "(a) Receipt from agents of foreign tourists in Indian currency Rs. 4,03,09,863 (b) Foreign exchange converted by the assessee as an authorised Rs. 5,27,22,837" money changer -------------------------------------------------------------- 5. In the present reference there is no dispute on item (b) since both the learned Members opined that deduction under section 80HHD was not available and to that extent the order passed by the Commissioner under section 263 was valid and required to be upheld. There was, however, a difference of opinion in respect of item (a) and the Commissioner in the notice pointed out that deduction under sec .....

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..... not justified in accepting the explanation of the assessee on the point at issue in utter disregard to Circular No. 621, dated19-12-1991issued by the CBDT which clarified the situation for the period prior to1-4-1992. According to the CIT the benefit of the Explanation added to sub-section (2) of section 80HHD could not be given to the assessee as the intention of the Legislature was to extend the benefit from assessment year 1992-93 onwards. It was noted by the CIT that prior to the addition of the Explanation aforesaid the benefit under section 80HHD was available only to the first recipient of the foreign exchange. In the final analysis, the CIT directed the Assessing Officer to withdraw the deduction under section 80HHD to the extent it related to the sum of Rs.4,03,09,863 representing the receipts in Indian rupee from the tour operators/agents of foreign tourists. 8. Being aggrieved with the action of the CIT the assessee filed an appeal to the Tribunal and the matter was argued at length before the Division Bench. The main arguments advanced on behalf of the assessee were as under:-- (i) With reference to the definition of "convertible foreign exchange" given in Explanat .....

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..... reliance on the decision of the Bombay High Court in the case of State Bank of India. 11. On the basis of the aforesaid it was contended that the deeming provisions of FERA, 1973 and those of the Expenditure Tax Act, 1987 read with relevant Rule of the Expenditure Tax Rules, 1987 could not be used for interpreting the provisions of section 80HHD. The further plea was that the aforesaid provisions were not at all applicable as these merely provided a benefit to foreign nationals to pay to hotels in Indian currency the same having been obtained by conversion of their foreign exchange. 12. The further submission on behalf of the Revenue was that Explanation (2) to sub-section (2) of section 80HHD was not clarificatory in nature inasmuch as it provided an additional benefit to hotels etc., who otherwise were not entitled for the benefit of deduction under section 80HHD prior to assessment year 1992-93. It was the plea that it was merely an extension of the earlier provision which initially was given to tour operators/foreign agents, who were entitled to get the deduction under section 80HHD being the first recipient of the foreign exchange from foreign tourists. The further plea o .....

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..... ted with approval an extract from the book "Principles of Statutory Interpretation" by Hon'ble Justice G.P. Singh [VIth Edition, 1996]. This is reproduced at page 19 by the learned Judicial Member and again at pages 25 and 26 by the then Senior Vice President, who ultimately deferred with the view expressed by the learned Judicial Member. 16. Coming back to the order of the learned Judicial Member in considering the application of the aforesaid views expressed on the question of interpretation, he observed that in the memorandum explaining the relevant provisions the intention which had been highlighted was to "secure the benefit of section 80HHD" to hotels and the Legislature had not used the word "declared" or "enacted". According to the learned Judicial Member the Legislature had not clarified any ambiguity and nor had it cured any judicial error in the existing statute, but it had merely enlarged the scope extending the benefit to other classes of assessees besides the existing assessees. In other words, the benefit, which was earlier available to tour operators/agents had been extended to hotels. 17. Further according to the learned Judicial Member the intention of the Leg .....

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..... Legislature in its wisdom had taken into account such a situation and had made the provision prospective i.e. effective assessment year 1992-93 onwards. In the final analysis, the learned Judicial Member held that the Commissioner of Income-tax was justified in rejecting the submissions of the assessee to the contrary and that he had rightly appreciated the impact of the Explanation as also sub-section (2A) both of which had been brought on the statute book with effect from 1-4-1992. 19. The then Hon'ble Senior Vice President who headed the Division Bench, however, did not agree with the view expressed by the learned Judicial Member and by means of a separate order opined that the Explanation was retrospective in nature since there was an ambiguity in the unamended provisions of section 80HHD whereby the first recipient of the foreign exchange was entitled to the benefit of section 80HHD without rendering any services and the real persons who had rendered the required services derived no benefit under the same section. According to the learned Senior Vice President the Parliament by inserting the Explanation as also sub-section (2A) intended to ensure proper sharing of the benef .....

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..... ed the benefit of section 80HHD i.e. a tour operator, a travel agent and a hotel, but prior to the insertion of the Explanation only two categories probably the tour operator and the travel agent were getting the benefit and the third category i.e. the hotel was deprived of the same and by the insertion of the explanation the benefit had also been provided to a hotel, which rendered most of the services to the foreign tourists. The plea, in other words, was that this had obviously been the intention of the Legislature, but there being some doubt/different interpretation being accorded the Legislature by insertion of Explanation with effect from 1-4-1992 sought to set right the anomaly, remove the ambiguous situation and allow the rightful relief/ exemption to which a hotel was entitled under section 80HHD and considering all these aspects of the matter, the Explanation was required to be considered as explanatory/declaratory and, therefore, retrospective in operation rather than prospective. 23. Before we come to the case laws cited by the learned counsel, we may mention that he sought to buttress his argument by referring to the other amendments carried out in the Income-tax Act .....

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..... unal in the case of Bhagwan Dass Khanna Enterprises had not considered the matter in proper perspective. The use of the words in the memorandum explaining the amendment i.e. "with a view to securing the benefit" was emphasized by the learned Departmental Representative to contend that the amendment was prospective in nature, more so, when the certificate of the auditor could not be treated to be retrospective since one of the conditions for allowing deduction under section 80HHD was the certificate of the auditor. The learned Departmental Representative referred to the observations of the learned Judicial Member in this respect. The learned Departmental Representative further contended that in case the explanation was considered to be retrospective, then a situation would arise that hundreds and thousands of assessees would get the benefit of the same amount for which the benefit had already been availed of by the tour operator or the travel agent. According to the learned Departmental Representative the provision itself categorically stated that it was to be with effect from1-4-1992and this had also been explained in the explanatory note, which had been extracted by the learned Ju .....

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..... intention of the Legislature was quite clear. 31. At the inception of the section itself by the Direct Tax Laws (Amendment) Act, 1989 with effect from1-4-1989the stress was on the earnings in convertible foreign exchange and relief was to be given to the first recipient whether it was the approved hotel or the approved tour operator or the travel agent. It must be appreciated that there are situations when each of these can be the first recipient i.e. when a foreign tourist approaches them without being part of a tour planned through a tour operator. 32. It must also be kept in mind that tours have largely been planned by the tour operators who are in direct touch with the foreign groups and a composite package normally involves the cost of air tickets to and fro, transportation from the airport to the city and vice versa hotel stay, local sight seeing and travel in India to spots of tourist interest etc. In other words, the hotel is only one segment of the entire package. To emphasise the role of the tour operator in earning foreign exchange was substantial and continues to be so. 33. By the amendment carried out with effect from 1-4-1992 i.e., by introduction of Explanation .....

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..... s. 39.4 Logically, the deduction, in such cases, should be allowed only on sharing basis, proportionate to the value of service rendered by each segment. 39.5 With a view to removing the duplication of the incentive for the same amount of foreign exchange remittance, section 80HHD has been amended to as to provide that the first recipient of foreign exchange would be entitled to deduction under section 80HHD in respect of the amount retained by him and not in respect of amount which represents payments passed on to the other assessee. 39.6. Accordingly, in a case where a group of foreign tourists pays $ 10,000 to a tour operator A and the tour operator pays in converted rupees, the value of $ 2,500 to hotel B, $ 1,500 to hotel C and $ 700 to travel agent D, the concession to each will be computed on the basis of the following receipts:-- (a) to the tour operator A, in respect of $ 5,300, i.e. [10,000 - (2,500 + 1,500 + 700)]; (b) to hotel B, in respect of $ 2,500; (c) to hotel C, in respect of $ 1,500; (d) to travel agent D, in respect of $ 700. 39.7 The same method will be applied where the first recipient is a hotel or a travel agent. 39.8 This amendment takes e .....

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..... bsurd result; (vii) In case of ambiguity the construction which is beneficial to the assessee has to be taken into account; and (viii) To examine whether a proviso/provision is intended to remedy unintended consequences and to make the existing provision workable, a proviso which supplies an obvious omission and which is required to be read into the section to give it a reasonable interpretation and under both the aforesaid situations a retrospective effect is to be given. 39. In applying the aforesaid legal propositions to the facts of the present case, I have to observe that whatever is required to treat an amendment as retrospective is missing and whatever is to be taken into account in treating a change as prospective is present. 40. In the final analysis, I hold that the Explanation to section 2 and section 2A added by Finance (No. 2) Act, 1961, w.e.f.1-4-1992were prospective and, therefore, not applicable to assessment year 1989-90. 41. Before I part with this reference, I would like to mention that much stress has been laid on a hotel being deprived of the benefit of section 80HHD since the appellant before the Tribunal is a hotel but it must be emphasized that the .....

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