9911796707
TMI Blog2016 (6) TMI 694X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ts of the case as noted in the penalty order are that the assessee is a Banking Company. During the course of assessment proceedings, the Assessing Officer observed certain repayments of fixed deposits in excess of Rs. 20,000/- which were made in cash, therefore, he held that assessee had violated the provisions of Section 269T and therefore, imposed the penalty u/s 271E of the Act amounting to Rs. 3,75,189/-. 4. Aggrieved with the penalty order the assessee filed appeal before learned CIT(A) and learned CIT also did not consider the arguments of assessee and upheld the penalty by holding as under: "Sec.271E deals with penalties imposed for failure to comply with the provisions of sec.269 T of the Act whereas se. 273 B of the Act provide ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the A.O." 5. Aggrieved the assessee is in appeal before us. 6. At the outset, the learned AR submitted that the Branch Manager of assessee company on the request of depositors had made repayments in cash as there was no Bank Accounts of depositors and due to genuine hardships the repayments were made and the intention was not to violate any provisions of the Act. He further submitted that genuineness of entries is not in dispute and entries are genuine repayments of depositors and therefore he argued that learned CIT(A) should have deleted the penalty. It was submitted that under similar facts and circumstance the Hon'ble ITAT, Amritsar Bench at Jammu Camp in ITA Nos. 73 to 75(Asr)/2014 in the case of assessee itself had deleted sim ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ies and have gone through the material placed on record. We find that there is no dispute that assessee had made repayments of fixed deposits in violation of provisions of section 269T and there is also no dispute that in Asst. Year 2007-08 repayments were made to such depositors who had no saving banks account as it apparent from the findings of learned CIT(A) himself. In Asst Year 2005-06, the repayments were made to seven persons in excess of Rs. 20,000/- on the basis of specific request letters from depositors who required the cash for marriage of children/ repairs of house or for non maintenance of Savings Bank Account. The learned CIT(A) has confirmed the penalty holding that there was no reasonable cause. In Asst. Year 2008-09, the C ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... hat the Department has not impeached the transaction as non-genuine. At the same time, it is also not he case of Department that the depositors were benami. In that view of the matter, it can be safely held that the bona fide belief coupled with the genuineness of the transactions constitute a reasonable cause, as provided under s. 273B. The repayments were genuine transactions and there was no mens rea on the part of the assessee at the time when the repayments were made." Similarly the Punjab & Haryana High Court in the case of CIT vs. Saini Medical Store 277 ITR 420 (P&H) has held as under: "A combined reading of the provisions of ss. 271E and 273B makes it clear that if the assessee shows "reasonable cause" for the failure to compl ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
|
