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2017 (2) TMI 849

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..... so alludes to the concept of charterer of ships, which even includes part of ship in an arrangement such as slot charter, space charter or joint charter. The slot charter and space charter of a ship cannot be segregated or read in isolation from the meaning of “charterer” as appearing in para 4 of Article 8. There is no stipulation under Article 8 that wherever passengers or cargos etc. are transported under charter arrangement with third party which includes slot or space charter, then, one leg of journey should be on vessel owned or leased by the shipping or Aircraft Company. As mentioned above, the word “Charterer” will include third party/joint service arrangement of slot or space in a ship and hence the transportation under such arrangement will be reckoned as profit from operation of ships. Thus, we agree with the contentions of the ld. Senior Counsel that even if the entire leg of journey is undertaken by a shipping company through and through charter arrangement or joint service arrangement, the benefit of Article 8 cannot be denied, because it will still fall within the ambit and scope of “operation of ships” under Article 8 (even under India- Singapore DTAA). So fa .....

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..... 144C of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (in short the Act ) for the Assessment Year 2008-09.In the grounds of appeal, assessee has raised the following grounds:- 1. On the facts and in the peculiar circumstances of the case and in law, the Hon'ble Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals) [ CIT (A) ] erred in making an addition by denying the benefit of Article 8 of India-Singapore Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement ('Tax Treaty') to freight of ₹ 98.66 crores collected by the appellant from 101 vessels which sailed out of India. 2. On the facts and in the peculiar circumstances of the case and in law, the Hon'ble CIT (A) erred in making an addition by denying the benefit of the Tax Treaty to the entire freight of ₹ 1106.89 crores earned by the appellant from its India operations by invoking provisions of Article 24 (limitation of relief) of the Tax Treaty. 3. On the facts and in the peculiar circumstances of the case and in law, the Hon'ble CIT(A) erred in holding that the appellant had failed to comply with the condition of remittance prescribed under Article 24 of the Tax Treaty without appreciating that: adjustment of cross claims and .....

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..... enance / rental of containers in connection with transportation within the meaning of Article 8(4)(c) of the Tax Treaty and thereby erred in denying the benefit of Article 8 of the Tax Treaty to the appellant. 8. Further to Ground No. 2, the Hon'ble CIT(A) erred in: Not appreciating that Article 24 of the Tax Treaty does not apply to the appellant as the appellant's freight income is taxable in Singapore on accrual basis and not remittance basis i.e. entire freight income is taxable in Singapore irrespective of remittance of freight to Singapore. Rejecting the clarification dated 21 February 2013 issued by the Singapore Revenue Authorities as sufficient evidence in support of the accrual basis of taxation of appellant's income in Singapore under the Singapore tax laws as well as the non-applicability of Article 24 of the Tax Treaty to the appellant. Wrongly interpreting the provisions of a foreign tax law (i.e. Singapore Income Tax Act and Circulars issued there under) by holding that the freight income cannot be regarded as Singapore sourced income under the provisions of Singapore Income Tax Act and further disregarding the clarification issu .....

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..... ration Certificates and copies of Charter Party agreements and other evidences in respect of 128 ships and for the balance 8 ships assessee could not produce any evidences. Accordingly, he held that the freight proceeds from following ships will not be entitled for benefit under Article 8, details of which have been given at para 4 of the assessment order and which for the sake of ready reference is reproduced hereunder :- Sr. No. Name of the ship Gross Receipt Rs. Detention Charges Rs. 1 Conti Germany 84,80,169 - 2 Howrah Bridge 3,00,696 85,467 3 Rajiv Gandhi 1,17,967 - 4 SathaBhum 47,04,892 - 5 TS Nagoya 30,41,420 - 6 Ninos 24,66,622 89,607 .....

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..... nt and; secondly, she proceeded to denythe entire exemption/benefit of Article 8 by holding that the entire freight of ₹ 1106.89 crores is to be assessed in India by invoking the limitation clause of Article 24 of India-Singapore DTAA. Now, against the first appellate order assessee has raised various grounds and also various contentions which we shall discuss hereinafter. 5. To put it succinctly, out of total freight receipts of ₹ 1106.89 crores from 136 ships, the Assessing Officer has given the benefit of Article 8 in respect of 128 ships for total freight of ₹ 1104.58 crores and held that the same is not taxable in India. For the balance 8 ships, for total freight of ₹ 2.29 crores, AO denied the benefit of Article 8. Fromthe first appellate stage, the ld. CIT(A) first denies the benefit of Article 8 quathe freight receipts aggregatingRs.98.67 crores and thereafter, the entire freight of ₹ 1106.89 crores has been held to be assessable in India by invoking Article 24. 6. Since the ld. CIT (A) has denied the entire benefit of Article 8 by invoking the provision of Article 24 of India-Singapore DTAA and has taxed the entire freight receipt in Ind .....

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..... be used only to decide whether an item of income has been received or not. However, the concept has no relevance in deciding place of receipt. Even if it is presumed that Indian freight was used to discharge liabilities of the assessee, the said discharge has taken place in New York and not in Singapore. iv) On deemed receipt of Indian freight in Singapore as per SITA - Indian freight cannot be deemed to be received in Singapore:- As per Article 3(2) of the Tax Treaty, terms not defined in the Tax Treaty have to be interpreted by referring to the definition contained in the domestic law of the country applying the DTAA (i.e. India). Therefore, there is no basis for referring to the provisions (i.e. Section 10(25)) contained in SITA for interpreting a term received / remitted contained in Article 24 of the DTAA. Even if clause (b) of Section 10(25) of SITA is assumed to be applicable, it requires that income should be applied towards satisfaction of any debt incurred in respect of a trade or business carried on in Singapore. In case of the assessee, the assessee carries on business partly in Singapore and partly outside Singapore and any debt (charter hire .....

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..... ision of Singapore law such letter was issued. It is not a circular issued by the IRAS. It can be regarded just as an opinion not backed by any statutory authority. It cannot be treated as conclusive evidence [para 95, page 49] Their opinion is based on the assumption / reasoning that if a business is partly carried on in Singapore and partly outside Singapore, the entire income of the business will still accrue only in Singapore because the control and management of the business is situated there. This assumption is wrong as the place of accrual of income depends on the nature of the transaction generating the income and not the place of control and management. If the reasoning based on control and management is accepted as correct then in all cases of a Singapore resident company, their global income will accrue in Singapore and hence Article 24 will not apply to any Singapore company. viii) On application filed by Appellant for obtaining tax residency certificate and Circular issued by IRAS - Appellant has stated nature of income as freight derived from India :- Singapore has prescribed a standard form for applying for TRC. In thi .....

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..... er APL Bermuda (creditor of the assessee) has been paid off in New York and not in Singapore. Hence condition of receipt in Singapore is not fulfilled in this case. The freight income accrues in India in accordance with the Law laid down by Supreme Court in India. The accrual is in India even in accordance with the source rule contained in Singapore Tax Laws. The letter issued by the Singapore tax authorities does not have any persuasive value as it does not have independent reasoning. When freight is not remitted to Singapore the assessee is not liable to tax on the said freight in Singapore A wrong inclusion in the return of income in Singapore of income on which the assessee is not liable to tax in Singapore does not bar the Indian authorities from concluding that the assessee was not liable to tax inSingapore on that income. More so when such Income is thereafter exempt in Singapore. India Singapore DTAA has been held to be a 'subject to tax DTAA in the case of Thomsen Chartering (supra) by the ITAT to the extent that DTAA benefits are extended only if the funds are remitted to Singapore and the assessee is subjected to tax in Singapore. .....

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..... specifically provides the incomes which are exempt from tax in a contracting state. Similarly, the DTAA also provides genres of income which are taxed at reduced rate, e.g., Article 11 dealing with interest and Article 12 dealing with Royalty and Fees for Technical Services. In support of his contention, he strongly relied upon the decision of ITAT, Mumbai Bench in the case of SET Satellite Singapore Pte Ltd. vs. ADIT in M.A No. 520/Mum/2010 dated 11.2.2011. He submitted that the freight earned by assessee is assessable to tax in Singapore under the domestic laws of Singapore on an accrual basis and not on remittance basis. Irrespective of remittance of freight income to Singapore, the entire freight income is assessable to tax in the hands of APL in Singapore on an accrual basis and not on remittance basis. Article 24 applies only when income is taxable in the country of residence on remittance basis. Whether the assessee is taxable on remittance basis in Singapore can only be decided/determined in accordance with the provisions of Singapore Income-tax law. He also referred to Sec. 10(1) of Singapore Income-tax Act, which is the charging section and pointed out that income accrui .....

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..... 359, wherein the Hon ble High Court in the context of India-Singapore DTAA has held that shipping company s income is not taxable in Singapore on the basis of remittance, albeit on accrual basis and, therefore, para 1 of Article 24 would not be applicable. While holding so, the Hon ble Court has heavily relied on the letter/confirmation issued by IRAS which confirmed the taxability of global shipping income in Singapore on accrual basis. To prove his point, he drew our specific attention to the various observations made in the said judgment by their Lordships. As regards the observation of the ld. CIT(A) that confirmation given by IRAS will not have significance, he submitted that firstly, whether the assessee s income is taxable in Singapore on accrual basis or remittance basis is a question of law, which is to be determined having regard to the law in force in Singapore and not in India; and secondly, once the Singapore tax authorities have confirmed the position of taxability of assessee s income, then said position is binding on other contracting state which has been held so in the decision of the Hon'ble Gujarat High Court as aforesaid and also well-settled by the judgme .....

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..... in Singapore only because the Singapore law envisages taxability of foreign sourced income only on the basis of remittance. She also filed a copy of downloaded version of literature of taxable and non- taxable income from IRASingapore website to show that u/s 10(25) of SITA, income from out of Singapore is considered received in Singapore only when it is remitted or transmitted or brought into Singapore. Here, in this case, the ld. CIT(A) has amply demonstrated that firstly,there is no remittance to Singapore and secondly, income itself is not taxable in Singapore. The foreign sourced income has been defined in Singapore Income Tax Act as foreign income that does not arise from a trade or business carried on in Singapore and foreign income is taxable only when it is actually received in Singapore and once this condition is fulfilled, then in terms of Article 24 the source state, i.e., India has a right to tax the shipping income. In support of her point she also filed certain decisions of the Court of appeals of Singapore specifically in the case of Comptroller of Income Tax vs. HY [2006] 2 SLR 405; SG [2006] SGCA 7 to show as to how the courts have interpreted the words derived f .....

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..... are generally taxed on income accruing in or derived from Singapore on accrual basis, however, income accruing or derived from outside Singapore is taxed on remittance basis. This is the consequence of Sec. 10(1) of Singapore Income Tax Act, which reads as under:- Charge of income tax: 10 (1) Income tax shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be payable at the rate or rates specified hereinafter for each year of assessment upon the income of any person accruing in or derived from Singapore or received in Singapore from outside Singapore in respect of- (a) gains or profits from any trade, business, profession or vocation, for whatever period of time such trade, business, profession or vocation may have been carried on or exercised (Emphasis added is ours) If we analyse the relevant phrases used in Article 24, it is quite apparent that two conditions have been envisaged that needs to be fulfilled; firstly, income earned from the source state (here in this case, India) is exempt from tax or is taxed at a reduced rate in the source state (India) as per the DTAA; and secondly, under the laws in force of the resident state (Singapore), such income is subject t .....

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..... eproduced hereunder:- Dear Sir/Madam APL Co. Pte Ltd. ( the company ) FREIGHT INCOME YEARS OF ASSESSMENT ( YAs ) 2008 2009 1. We refer to our discussions on the subject. 2. You have stated that the company is primarily engaged in shipping and related businesses and it receives freight payments for its services. During calendar years 2007 and 2008, the company derived freight income from third parties including freight income from Indian operations, that is, income from the carriage of goods/cargo to and from Indian ports. The company has reported the freight income in its Singapore tax returns for the YAs 2008 and 2009. 3. You wish to seek our clarification to the effect that Article 24(1) of the India-Singapore double taxation agreement (DTA) is not applicable to the freight income derived from Indian operations. 4. The freight income derived by the company from Indian operations was accrued in or derived from a business carried on in Singapore. As such, it was regarded as Singapore sourced income and assessed to tax in Singapore on accrual basis (i.e. not remittance basis) in the YAs 2008 and 2009. 5. In this regard, the physical flow of .....

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..... by virtue of Clause-1 of Article 24. As noted, Article-24 of DTAA pertains to limitation of relief. Under clause-1 thereof where the agreement provides that the income from sources in contracting states (in the present case, India) shall be exempt from tax or tax at a reduced rate and under the laws in force in other contracting states (i.e. Singapore), such income is subject to tax by reference to the amount thereof which is remitted or received in that State and not by reference to the full amount thereof then the exemption or reduction of tax under the agreement would be limited to so much of the income as is remitted to or received in that contracting State. In plain terms therefore, if the income in question was taxable in Singapore on the basis of receipt or remission and not by reference to the full amount of income accruing, clause-1 of Article 24 would apply and dependent on the facts of the case, exemption as per Article 8 either in whole or in part would be excluded. 17. It is, in this context, that the certificate dated 09.01.2013 issued by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore assumes significance. In the said certificate, as noted, it was certified that the i .....

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..... se-1 of Article 24 would not survive. The contention of Shri Mehta for revenue that the certificate of the Singapore revenue authorities is opposed to provisions of section 10 of the Singapore Income Tax Act also cannot be accepted. The Revenue does not question genuineness of the certificate. It cannot dispute the contention on the ground that the same are opposed to the statutoryprovision. 19. By way of a reference, we may notice that the Tribunal also in case of this very assessee in case of Alabra Shipping Pte Ltd. v. Income-tax Officer - International Taxation, Gandhidham, reported in 62 Taxmann.com 185 has taken a somewhat similar view by observing as under: 6. As a plain reading of Article 24(1) would show, this LOB clauses comes into play when (i) income sourced in a contracting state is exempt from tax in that source state or is subject to tax at a reduced rate in that source state, (ii) the said income (i.e. income sourced in the contracting state) is subject to tax by reference to the amount remitted to, or received in, the other contracting state, rather than with reference to full amount of such income; and (iii) in such a situation, the treaty protection wi .....

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..... cope of taxing the income of the ship in any of the ports in India. The agreement between the two countries has ousted the jurisdiction of the taxing officers in India to tax the profits derived by the enterprise once it is found that the ship belongs to a resident of the other contracting country and such position has also been clarified by the Circulars issued by the Board as indicated above. 22. In the present case, however, we are not inclined to conclude this issue since this was not even a ground on which either the Assessing Officer or the Commissioner has refused to grant the benefit to the petitioner. It is a ground sought to be raised for the first time before us by the Revenue, for which, neither full factual evidence, nor legal foundation is laid. We leave such an issue open to be decided in the appropriate case. The aforesaid judgment of Hon'ble Gujarat High Court clearly clinches the issue in favour of the assessee, wherein the Hon ble High Court has categorically held that the shipping income is not taxable in Singapore on the basis of remittance, but on accrual basis and, therefore, para 1 of Article 24 would not be applicable. Here, in this case also .....

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..... empt from tax or taxed at reduced rate, which is a condition precedent for applicability of Article 24, albeit India at the threshold does not have the jurisdiction to tax the shipping income of the non-resident entity. Thus, the condition of Article 24 is not satisfied in the present case from this angle also. In conclusion, we hold that the ld. CIT (A) was not justified in denying the benefit of Article 8 by invoking the limitation clause of Article 24 of India- Singapore DTAA as per our discussion above and most important, now this issue stands squarely covered by the decision of Hon'ble Gujarat High Court as referred above. In the light of our aforesaid finding, we do not deem fit to enter into the semantics of other findings of Ld. CIT (A) like nexus between remittance of freight collected in India and finally to Singapore various and other aspects raised by her and also the various arguments as raised by ld. Sr. Counsel and ld. CIT-DR qua the issue of Article 24. 13. Now, the next issue for our consideration is eligibility of Article 8 in respect of income earned from shipping operations by the assessee from India. As stated in our earlier part of the order, during the .....

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..... ctly connected with such transportation , the freight booked through feeder vessels will be eligible for DTAA benefit only when the goods transported through feeder vessels are further trans-shipped through mother vessels operated by the assessee. The assessee has to link the goods in the feeder vessels with mother vessels operated by it, to claim benefit. She further observed that 81 vessels were under the connecting carrier arrangement which are generally termed as feeder vessels where only space is given to the assessee on adhoc basis by the feeder operator and such transportation of goods through feeder vessel do not fulfil the requirements of Article 8 because these feeder vessels are not owned, leased or operated by the assessee. Regarding the other 16 ships, she observed that though these ships were claimed to be under Joint Service agreement, however, the assessee had produced Ship Validation Certificate, which are only of feeder operators. It does not refer to any Joint Service agreement. Hence, solely based on such Ship Validation Certificate, DTAA benefit cannot be extended to the assessee. She further noted that the assessee had explained that in all 211 mother v .....

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..... , Shri Pardiwala has been that, the ld. CIT (A) has proceeded on the premise that slot charter arrangement , i.e. transportation done through feeder vessel to mother vessel and solely from feeder vessel will not be entitled for benefit under Article 8, because the entire leg of journey has not been done by the ship owned, leased or chartered by the assessee. Such a premise of Ld. CIT(A) now stands answered by the decision of the coordinate Bench of Tribunal in the case of MISC Berhad vs. ADIT in ITA No. 6499/Mum/2012 dated 16.7.2014 and also by the decision of Hon'ble High Court in the case of Hon'ble Bombay High Court in the case of Balaji Shipping UK Ltd. (supra), wherein the Hon'ble High Court has categorically held that even shipping operations done through slot charter arrangement is to be treated as income from shipping operations. On the other hand, the ld. CIT-DR had mainly relied upon the relevant observation and finding of CIT(A) and she also referred to that portion of the decision of MISC Berhad (supra), wherein the Tribunal has held that a linkage has to be established between the transportation of feeder vessel and the mother vessel which is owned or leas .....

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..... , mail, livestock or goods carried on by the owners or lessees or charterers of the ships or aircraft, including profits from: (a) the sale of tickets for such transportation on behalf of other enterprises; (b) the incidental lease of ships or aircraft used in such transportation; (c) the use, maintenance or rental of containers (including trailers and related equipment for the transport of containers) in connection with such transportation; and (d) any other activity directly connected with such transportation. The key phrases on which heavy reliance has been placed are operation of ships, transportation by sea or air carried on by the owners or lessees or charterers of the ships . This precise matter of the issue had come up for consideration before this Bench in the case of MISC Berhad (supra), wherein on interpretation of Article 8 of Malaysia India-DTAA, which contains a similar phraseology, it was observed and opined as under :- 23. We will now independently examine Article 8(1) and Article 8(2) of Indo Malaysia DTAA. The crucial phrase or words which need to be analysed here are operation of ships , transportation by the owner or lessees o .....

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..... o not apply here. In other words, the meaning of the word charterer cannot be imported from or to be understood from the meaning of the word owner or lessee . The learned counsel, before us, has also filed various meaning of the term charter or charterer , which are as under: i) Dictionary of International Business terms (Financial World Publishing), defines the term Charter as under: To rent an aircraft or vessel, or a part of its cargo space, for a particular journey or a period of time. ii) Black s Law Dictionary (9th Edition) defines the term charter which includes the term space charter which is defined as under: A charter for a part of a vessel s capacity, such as a specified hold or deck or a specified part of the vessel s carrying capacity. iii) K.J. Aiyar s Judicial Dictionary (12th Edition) defines the term charter party as under: An agreement in writing by which a ship owner agrees to let an entire ship or part thereof, to a merchant, for the carriage of goods on a specified voyage, or during a specified period, for a sum of money which the merchant agrees to pay as freight for their carriage. iv) Concise Law .....

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..... t of a ship or particular space in a ship. From the above analysis of these phrases, the Tribunal had come to the conclusion that the definition of operation of ships also alludes to the concept of charterer of ships, which even includes part of ship in an arrangement such as slot charter, space charter or joint charter. The slot charter and space charter of a ship cannot be segregated or read in isolation from the meaning of charterer as appearing in para 4 of Article 8. The Hon'ble Jurisdictional High Court in the case of Balaji Shipping U.K Ltd. (supra) has clearly explained the concept of slot charter. The relevant observations of the Hon'ble Court reads as under:- 24. Slot hire agreements have been and remain a regular feature of the shipping industry for decades. Whether they constitute a charter of a portion of a ship or not is a different matter. In a case of the first type, the carriage of goods by availing of the slot hire facility is an integral part of the contract of carriage of goods by sea. Without it, the enterprise / assessee would be greatly hampered in its business in relation to international traffic, carriage of goods by sea. Enterprises o .....

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..... aged by an enterprise may not be available on the particular route on a given day or for a particular period. The enterprise may already have entered into contracts or may even be required to enter into contracts for the carriage of goods on that route on that day or during that period. The trade would expect the enterprise to perform its contracts and/or ensure there is no break in its services. This it can do by availing slot hire agreements. Their refusal or failure to do so, may well affect their business and reputation adversely. 27. By availing the facility of slot hire agreements, the enterprise does not arrange the shipment on behalf of the owner of the said vessel, but does so on its own account on a principal to principal basis with its clients. Such cases also have a nexus to the main business of the enterprise of the operation of ships. They are ancillary to and complement the operation of ships by the enterprise. If they are not merely ancillary to the main business of operation of ships but constitute the primary and main activities of the enterprise, it may be a different matter, which we are not called upon to consider in the facts and circumstances of the pres .....

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..... under: 2(a) The carrier has offered container slots space to the line (respondent) and the line (respondent) has accepted to use such space on as/when required basis. [Emphasis added] The observations of the Hon ble High Court may be general but is universally applicable wherever interpretation of operation of ships is required, because their Lordships have explained the concept of operation of ships qua slot/space charter arrangements with third party, especially as explained in para 26 27 of the judgment (as reproduced above). Once the word Charter of a ship is reckoned or understood as slot/space charter arrangement or joint service arrangement with third party, then it would be too myopic to restrict the meaning of operation of ships only to the journey undertaken as owner or lessee or charterer of a ship either for whole leg of journey or part of journey. There is no stipulation under Article 8 that wherever passengers or cargos etc. are transported under charter arrangement with third party which includes slot or space charter, then, one leg of journey should be on vessel owned or leased by the shipping or Aircraft Company. As mentioned above, the w .....

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..... r and it falls within the ambit of operation of ships , then the benefit of Article 8 cannot be denied simple on the ground that the transportation has been done either partly or fully through slot charter arrangement or joint charter arrangement, etc. Thus, in view of our discussion above, we hold that so far as denial of benefit of Article 8 in respect of 97 ships for sums aggregating to ₹ 97,29,89,746/- is not justified and we direct the Assessing Officer to give the benefit of Article 8 in respect of 97 ships, which has been denied by the CIT(A). 18. So far as the freight receipt of ₹ 1,36,89,191/- in respect of 4 ships is concerned, it is an admitted fact that no evidence whatsoever or documents could be furnished by the assessee either before the Assessing Officer or the CIT(A) or even before us and, therefore, we hold that to the extent of freight receipt of ₹ 1,36,89,191/-, the benefit of Article 8 will not be available to the assessee and same is directed to be taxed in India under the relevant statutory provisions. Thus, the issue relating to benefit of Article 8 is decided partly in favour of the assessee. 19. In view of our finding given above, .....

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