KOLAHAI INFOTECH PVT LTD Vs. INCOME TAX OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is aggrieved by the re-assessment notice issued under Sections 142, 147 and 148 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the "Act"). The respondent Revenue, on being asked to furnish the "reasons to believe", upon which the impugned re-assessment notice was furnished, did so. Pertinently, the reasons to believe supplied to the petitioner, stated that according to information received by the Revenue the on the basis of a survey conducted under Section 133 (A) of the Act in the case of related company (Maruti Clean Coal & Power Ltd.) on 26.09.2016, and the statement of one Rajesh Gulati, ex-Director, it held 2147944 shares as on 01.04.2009, valued at Rs. 7,22,00,000/-. The re-assessment reasons also recorded that in the subsequent financial year F.Y. 2010-11, the petitioner acquired further shareholdings from other entities. The Revenue then set out the corporate holding pattern of the petitioner and its related company and later stated that :-

(2.) The petitioner contends that the statement of Mr. Rajesh Gulati, which is mentioned in the reasons to believe, clearly shows that the share holding, which excited the curiosity of the Revenue and led it to re-open the concluded assessment - the assessment for A.Y. 2010-11 was the shareholding related to F.Y. 2008-09. In other words, this emphasizes that the petitioner company had the shares valued at Rs. 7,22,00,000/- in the previous year. In these circumstances, the re-opening of assessment for the subsequent year, was based on entirely erroneous conclusions.

(3.) The Revenue contends that the re-assessment was based upon the information received from the Commissioner of Income Tax, Raipur which in turn has based upon survey initiated in the case of Maruti Clean Coal & Power Ltd. The petitioner's shareholding pattern in that company emerges from that survey. It was submitted that the Revenue's case made out in the re-assessment notice was that the corporate veil, created by the string of companies with interlocking holding, needed to be unveiled and in these circumstances, the AO did not process the complete information and rather had to rely upon the broad nature of the facts revealed to him. It is submitted that since the basis for the re-assessment notice was tangible material outside of the record received by the Revenue, this Court ought not to intervene in any manner whatsoever.