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Judgment
PER SHRI SATBEER SINGH GODARA, JUDICIAL MEMBER:
This assessee’s appeal for assessment year 2017-18 is filed against the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals)/Addl. JCIT(A)(for short, ‘CIT(A)’), Panaji’s order dated 30-Mar-2026 passed in DIN & order No. ITBA/APL/S/250/2025-26/1088106823(1), involving proceedings u/s 143(3) of the Income Tax Ac, 1961; hereinafter referred to as, “the Act”.
Heard both the parties. Case file perused.
Delay of a day in filing of the assessee’s/Revenue’s instant appeal is condoned in larger interest of justice and in light of Collector, Land & Acquisition vs. Mst. Katiji & Others (1987) 167 ITR 471 (SC).
It emerges during the course of hearing that the assessee presses for his sole substantive ground on merits challenging both the learned lower authorities’ action treating its cash deposits of Rs. 18,50,000/- as unexplained u/s 69A in the assessment order dated 10.12.2019 as upheld in the learned CIT(A)’s lower appellate discussion.
It is noticed that the assessee had sold his land on 12.04.2019 for a sale consideration of Rs. 18,50,000/- and received advance of Rs. 4 lakhs as per sale deed executed on 31.05.2016. There is hardly any dispute that the assessee had indeed deposited the impugned cash on various occasions during demonetization period i.e. between 01.04.2016 to 31.12.2017 in his bank account maintained with M/s Bank of Baroda.
Faced with this situation, the Revenue seeks to buttress the point that it was the assessee’s onus all along to plead and prove the necessary reconciliation and verification of the impugned cash deposits vis-à-vis his sale consideration pertaining to the transfer of all agricultural lands. I find only a part merit in the Revenue’s stand to this effect. I wish to make it clear that going by Mrs. Malini Ramnath Rele Vs. Third Income-Tax Officer on [1994] 49 ITD 43 (TM) (MUM), the necessary inference which would arise in the assessee’s favour is that given the fact that he had sold/transferred his ancestral agricultural lands, possibility of his cash deposits representing the sale price over and above that adopted by the registration authority(ies) could not be altogether denied although he could not prove all the facts to the entire satisfaction of both the lower authorities. I thus deem it appropriate in this peculiar factual backdrop that a lumpsum addition of Rs.2.10 lakhs only in the assessee’s hands would be just and proper with a rider that the same shall not be treated as a precedent. The assessee gets relief of Rs.16,40,000/- lakhs in other words. Necessary computation shall follow as per law.
This assessee’s appeal is partly allowed.