Coca-Cola India (P.) Ltd. vs Assistant Registrar

Rule. The respondents waive service. By consent, Rule made returnable forthwith.

This writ petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India is directed against the order passed by Tribunal, Bench at Pune, on 6th Dec, 2013 in a miscellaneous application styled as Misc. Appln. No. 150/Pn/2010 arising out of I.T.A. Nos. 1258/Pn/2003, 182 and 610/Pn/2004, 256 and 144/Pn/2007, 1103/Pn/2005 and 896/Pn/2008. The assessment years in question are 1998-99 to 2004-05.

The few facts which are referred for the purpose of this writ petition are that the petitioner before us is a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956. It has its registered office at the address mentioned in the cause title of this writ petition. The petitioner had approached the Tribunal against the order passed by the CIT(A). The assessment years in question were as noted above. The case of the petitioner is in relation to allowance of service charges including travelling expenses. The factual position regarding this claim for the assessment years noted above is on the record of the CIT(A) during the course of a challenge by the petitioner-assessee to an order passed by the AO on 30th March, 2001. The grievance was that the AO had erroneously refused to grant the claim of the assessee. Before the CIT(A), initially the documents in relation to service charges were filed but the CIT(A) remanded the matter to the AO and called for a report. The report after remand was received by the CIT(A). He, therefore, proceeded to decide the matter and passed an order on 14th Aug., 2003. He, in that order, has held that the disallowance on account of service charges including travelling expenses needs to be enhanced to 25 per cent. The petitioner-assessee''s appeal and particularly ground No. 2 therein was decided against it and with the enhancement as made.

Aggrieved and dissatisfied with such an order of the CIT(A), the petitioner approached the Tribunal. The petitioner was aggrieved, inter alia, by the enhancement in the disallowance to the extent made by the CIT(A).

The petitioner''s grievance is that during the course of proceedings in appeal, it relied on the record before the CIT(A). Since the CIT(A) had before him the necessary factual materials including a report from the AO on remand, that the petitioner deemed it fit to argue the appeal on the basis that the CIT(A)''s order is erroneous in law. The disallowance could not have been enhanced and in any event the claim towards service charges including traveling expenses should have been granted in full.

The Revenue argued to the contrary and pointed out that the factual foundation was not laid by the petitioner-assessee before the AO. The Revenue also argued that the findings in relation to prior assessment years cannot be of any assistance to the petitioner-assessee and this claim is, therefore, required to be decided without making any reference, leave alone following the earlier findings.

The petitioner submitted before the Tribunal that the issue should be decided on the basis of this available material and the submissions recorded in the Tribunal''s order. However, when the petitioner received the final order of the Tribunal, it noticed that the Tribunal has erroneously observed that there was no record and factual data before the AO. Therefore, without making any reference to the record before the CIT(A), the Tribunal remanded the matter to the file of the AO and that was with the following direction:

"We find the reasons given by the learned Departmental Representative not to follow the decision of the Tribunal order for the asst. yr. 1997-98 are not at all convincing in view of the point-wise counter-reply given by the learned counsel for the assessee to prove that those objections given by the learned Departmental Representative to deviate from the decision of the Tribunal for the asst. yr. 1997-98 have been replied by the learned senior counsel for the assessee which are already mentioned at paras 50 to 71 of this order and these need not be incorporated here to avoid repetition. Considering the totality of the facts of the case and respectfully following the decision of the Tribunal in assessee''s own case for the immediately preceding assessment year, we are of the opinion that the marketing expenses claimed by the assessee have to be allowed. However, as regards service charges, undoubtedly, the assessee has not furnished the details before the AO except the copy of the service agreement and the debit notes. It is the settled proposition of law that for claiming any expenditure, the onus is always on the assessee to satisfy the AO with documentary evidence regarding the genuineness of the expenditure. The assessee in the instant case has failed to discharge the onus. Further, the learned CIT(A) has given a finding at para. 8.1 of his order that the claim of the assessee in various submissions that all expenses as incurred by CCI Inc. would have to be incurred by assessee company in running the business is not entirely correct as has been separately brought out at different places of the appeal orders. We, therefore, in the interest of justice, deem it proper to restore the issue relating to ''service charges'' to the file of the AO with a direction to decide the issue afresh after giving an opportunity to the assessee to substantiate the claim with evidence. We hold and direct accordingly. The ground raised by the assessee on marketing expenses are accordingly allowed whereas and the ground relating to service charges is allow for statistical purposes."

The petitioner, therefore, made an application styled as the above miscellaneous application and requesting that the mistake which is apparent on the face of the record be corrected and the original order passed by the Tribunal be recalled to that extent.

The specific case of the petitioner in the miscellaneous application was that the issue of service charges including traveling expenses should have been decided by the Tribunal on the available material and there was no warrant for remanding the case. The finding that the assessee has not furnished full details before the AO except the copy of the service agreement and the debit notes cannot be a ground for remanding the matter for asst. yrs. 1999-2000 to 2004-05 back to him. The petitioner''s case was that the dispute before the Tribunal was only as to whether expenditure on service charges which leads to incidental benefit to third parties such as the bottlers and TCC can be said to be "whole and exclusively" incurred for the business purpose of the petitioner-assessee. This issue was thoroughly considered by the Tribunal in asst. yr. 1997-98 and it was decided in favour of the assessee. There were clear findings recorded for the asst. yrs. 1997-98 and 1998-99. Therefore, it was an apparent mistake and to hold that firstly, there were lack of details in full before the AO. To that the finding was given in para. 8.1 of the order of the CIT(A) but the findings that were rendered by him on the basis of the record before him were not complete so as to enable the Tribunal to deal with the legal issue. The petitioner pointed out that this observation and conclusion of the Tribunal was vitiated by an apparent mistake inasmuch as the Tribunal failed to note that the facts were same. There was evidence before the CIT(A) and from 1999 onwards even the evidence was before the AO. There was a direction to the AO by the CIT(A) to scrutinize and verify the documents and make a report. Once that remand report was received by the CIT(A) and he duly considered it, for the purposes of enhancing the disallowance, then, the direction that the issue relating to service charges including traveling expenses needs to be restored to the file of the AO is nothing but an apparent mistake and the Tribunal has full powers to correct it.

The Tribunal was also informed that it committed the same mistake in relation to asst. yr. 1997-98 but refused to go into the aspect of service charges and render any finding thereon. Instead, it issued a similar direction of restoring the matter to the file of the AO. A miscellaneous application to correct this mistake was filed which was rejected. All this led to the petitioner-assessee filing a writ petition in this Court being Writ Petn. No. 7459 of 2006 which was decided by this Court on 12th Feb., 2007. That order of this Court is reported in Coca Cola India (P) Ltd. Vs. Income Tax Appellate Tribunal and Others, . Therefore, the Tribunal should not repeat such a mistake and force the parties like the petitioner to resort to further legal proceedings.

It is that application which has been rejected by the impugned order and to the extent of the rejection of the claim/disallowance of service charges including travelling expenses that this writ petition has been filed questioning the order of the Tribunal.

Mr. Dastur, learned senior counsel, appearing in support of this writ petition, submitted that the Tribunal''s order is vitiated by an error of law apparent on the face of the record. It has completely misdirected itself in issuing the direction and which is to be found at p. 76 of the order of the Tribunal. Mr. Dastur submitted that it was pointed out in detail to the Tribunal while arguing the miscellaneous application that in the original order dt. 31st March, 2010 the Tribunal issued a direction which could not have been issued by it when the vouchers and other evidence produced by the appellant has been enquired into by the CIT(A) to enhance the deduction. Mr. Dastur submits that if that was the basis on which the CIT(A) passed the order, then, the correctness of the order passed by the CIT(A) and relying on that record, was the issue in question. Once the Tribunal had before it the necessary and requisite material to deal with the issue of service charges including traveling expenses, the direction in para. 76 of the order dt. 31st March, 2010 was an obvious mistake. The mistake was so apparent and for which no elaborate exercise of going behind the order in entirety or to consider any claim or submission by going through the entire record was necessary. In fact, in para. 76, the Tribunal observed that as regards service charges undoubtedly the assessee has not furnished the full details before the AO except the copy of the service agreement and the debit notes. This finding was erroneous and apparently because there was voluminous record before the CIT and which included a report of the remand by the CIT(A) to the AO. If the AO had to submit a report after such remand and for scrutiny of the relevant documents, then, definitely the finding of the Tribunal that the AO did not have the full details is incorrect. Alternatively and without prejudice, even if, there were no full details before the AO they were definitely available before the CIT(A). Those were enough for decision on the disallowance of service charges including travelling expenses and the issue in relation thereto. For all these reasons, this was not a case where the Tribunal could have rejected the application for rectification of the mistake. For these reasons, the impugned order deserves to be set aside.

Mr. Dastur has invited our attention to the contents of the miscellaneous application and equally the order of the Tribunal on the same. He submits that the order passed by the Tribunal on this miscellaneous application and to the extent challenged before us is totally perverse in as much as in para. 17.1 it had noted the submission of the petitioner''s counsel that the assessee filed various vouchers in 10 box files. It has also referred to the finding of the CIT(A) that there are expenses which have been claimed by one CCI Inc. If that was the factual position, then, the Tribunal was not required to correct anything in its original order. That it proceeded to correct something, is apparent from para. 17 of the impugned order, wherein it made a correction. The finding was that the AO is required to examine and scrutinize whether the claim of the petitioner-assessee is genuine or not. In other words, the "genuineness" of the expenditure was required to be proved. Now, the Tribunal in para. 17 holds that inadvertently the word "genuine" has crept in the original order. The word needs to be substituted with another word called "allowability". Mr. Dastur submits that if this was the correction required in the original order, then, the further correction as desired by the petitioner could have always been made, more so, when the Tribunal was requesting and emphasizing is that there must be a decision on the issue. The Tribunal must decide the matter or claim itself and not send it back and restore it to the AO. This has unduly prolonged the proceedings.

Mr. Vimal Gupta, on the other hand, would submit that the petitioner desired to correct a mistake which was not apparent on the face of the record. If there was a mistake or error in the original order and which required the original order to be corrected to such an extent so as to verify and scrutinize the original record, then, the remedy of the petitioner was to file an appeal and not a miscellaneous application. The remedy chosen was misconceived. That it is misconceived, is clear from the fact that the Tribunal is required to pass another order assigning further reasons. In these circumstances, the ploy of the petitioner-assessee is to some how derive benefit from the conclusion reached by the Tribunal pertaining to the same claim for the asst. yr. 1997-98. However, the position has undergone a change and, therefore, the petitioner-assessee cannot derive any benefit from these earlier findings and conclusions. This being the position, the petitioner-assessee cannot prevail upon the Tribunal to modify its original order and force it to follow the findings and conclusions for prior assessment years. This attempt of the petitioner-assessee is apparent and, therefore, this writ petition should not be entertained but dismissed.

We have with the assistance of the learned counsel appearing for parties, perused the relevant part of the original order, the miscellaneous application to the extent it raises the claim/disallowability of service charges including travelling expenses and the order on miscellaneous application in this behalf.

We have also perused the order passed by this Court in the case of the very petitioner for the prior assessment year and a copy of which is at p. 61 of the paper book. It is clear that the said order was passed in a writ petition by the petitioner-assessee. That writ petition challenged the order passed on miscellaneous application filed by the petitioner-assessee for rectification of the mistakes in the order of the Tribunal for asst. yr. 1997-98. After a detailed scrutiny of the record pertaining to that assessment year, this Court concluded that the petitioner was right in the complaint that it made. Even on that occasion, the Tribunal had chosen to restore the claim/disallowance in relation to service charges to the file of the AO for a decision afresh and in accordance with law. The petitioner pointed out that the foundation or basis on which the Tribunal proceeded earlier was erroneous in as much as there was adequate and enough material on record to deal with and decide the petitioner''s claim in relation to service charges. Therefore, the apparent mistake was required to be corrected by the Tribunal itself. This Court held that the Tribunal ought to have adjudicated upon the issues and decide any specific issues if they were found to be necessary. The Tribunal has not considered the specific issues raised in the appeal and had passed an order of remand to the AO without adverting to any of the materials that were already before it. Such an order of remand was difficult to be sustained and hence this Court set aside the same. Thereafter, the matter was restored to the file of the Tribunal and for a decision in accordance with law.

It may be that the Tribunal has allowed the claim of the assessee on such restoration by this Court and for asst. yr. 1997-98. However, that issue came up again and for the assessment year which we have noted hereinabove. The matter was before the AO and he took a particular view on the claim/allowances. He disallowed the expenses to the extent of 10 per cent. Aggrieved and dissatisfied with this exercise of the AO, the petitioner-assessee carried the matter in appeal before the CIT(A). During the course of the arguments before him, factual and legal issues were raised. The CIT(A) noted that further elaboration is required in relation to certain materials. Therefore, he remanded the issue to the AO and called for a report from him after such remand. After the report was received from the AO the CIT(A) dealt with the claim/allowance and in a detailed order concluded that not only the disallowance was justified but it could not have been restricted only to 10 per cent and deserves to be enhanced to 25 per cent. He adverted to the entire material in the form of not just oral submissions of parties but documents which were placed by the assessee, inter alia, all vouchers and available in about 19 box files. With such elaborate material before him, he enhanced the disallowance. If the petitioner is aggrieved by such an exercise of the CIT(A) and preferred the further appeal to the Tribunal, then, the least that was expected of the Tribunal was to decide the issue. It noted the rival contentions but failed to decide the issue one way or the other as is apparent from the reasons that it assigned in para. 76 of its original order. We find that once the Tribunal concluded that considering the totality of the facts of the case and following the decision of the Tribunal in assessee''s own case for the immediately preceding assessment year, the claim in relation to marketing expenses raised by the assessee needs to be allowed, however, on the same material and on totality of the facts as far as service charge is concerned, the Tribunal holds that the assessee has failed to furnish full details before the AO except the copy of the service agreement and the debit notes. There is no reference at all made by the Tribunal to the adequacy or sufficiency or otherwise of the materials before CIT(A) and the respondent No. 2. It has failed to take note of the report submitted to the CIT(A) by the AO after remand of the case to him. In fact, the petitioner''s case was that there was enough material on record enabling the Tribunal to decide the issues raised. For the asst. yr. 1998-99, the evidence was filed before the CIT(A) and in relation to asst. yrs. 1999-2000 to 2004-05, the evidence was filed in several box files before the Dy. CIT (Respondent No. 2). In such circumstances, we are of the opinion that the Tribunal should have corrected this obvious mistake and error and recalled the order and direction in para. 76 to this limited extent. It should not have refused to consider and decide the issue relating to service charges, more so, when an identical view taken by it earlier has not found favour of this Court. This Court repeatedly reminded the Tribunal of its duty as a last fact-finding authority of dealing with all factual and legal issues. The Tribunal failed to take any note of the caution which has been administered by this Court and particularly of not remanding cases unnecessarily and without any proper direction. A blanket remand causes serious prejudice to parties. None benefits by non-adjudication or non-consideration of an issue of fact and law by an appellate authority and by wholesale remand of the case back to the original authority. This is a clear failure of duty which has to be performed by the appellate authority in law. Once the appellate authority fails to perform such duty and is corrected on one occasion by this Court, and in relation to the same assessee, then, the least that was expected from the Tribunal was to follow the order and direction of this Court and abide by it even for this later assessment year. If the same claim and which was dealt with by the Court earlier and for which the note of caution was issued, then, the Tribunal was bound in law to take due note of the same and follow the course for the later assessment years. We are of the view that the refusal of the Tribunal to follow the order of this Court and equally to correct its obvious and apparent mistake is vitiated as above. It is vitiated by a serious error of law apparent on the face of the record. We find much substance in the contention of Shri Dastur that the Tribunal has misdirected itself completely and in law in refusing to decide and consider the claim in relation to service charges.

We are also aware of the apprehension that Mr. Vimal Gupta voiced and namely that if the matter goes back to the Tribunal and that too for the purpose of abiding by this Court''s order and direction including in the earlier writ petition that would mean that the Tribunal is obliged to follow its view taken for the prior asst. yr. 1997-98 and apply it in the later assessment years. We have taken note of this apprehension but we are of the opinion that once Mr. Dastur appearing for the petitioner has not pitched or placed the case of the petitioner so high or to such an extent that we must direct the Tribunal to follow a particular course in law, then, this apprehension of Mr. Gupta has no basis. Once the Tribunal is directed to decide and consider the claim in relation to service charges, then, it is equally obliged to consider and decide it by taking into account the contentions and case of both sides. It cannot render any finding and conclusion without a complete and proper hearing. It must also take note of the submissions of the Revenue that the position has undergone a drastic change after the asst. yr. 1997-98 and in relation to the same claim. Therefore, we have no doubt that when the Tribunal considers the matter again it will also deal with Revenue''s contentions that the finding and conclusion on this issue of service charges for prior assessment year will not bind the Tribunal for the later years. Once we have taken note of the apprehension of the Revenue and clarified the matter as above, then, the only thing that remains is to pass a final order and direction and not just allow the writ petition. We, therefore, pass the following order:

(A) The order passed by the Tribunal on the miscellaneous application dt. 6th Dec, 2013 is quashed and set aside.

(B) The miscellaneous application filed by the petitioner seeking recall of the original order to the extent of the claim of service charges including travelling expenses and restoring that claim to the file of the Tribunal and the appeal filed by it, is, therefore, allowed.

(C) The original order passed by the Tribunal dt. 31st March, 2010 is recalled to the extent of the claim of service charges including travelling expenses.

(D) The appeal filed by the petitioner-assessee before the Tribunal, namely, ITA No. 1258/Pn/2003 is restored to the file of the Tribunal, Pune Bench, for a decision afresh on merits and in accordance with law on the claim of service charges including travelling expenses and which it should decide as expeditiously as possible. All contentions of both sides in relation to this claim are kept open including the contention of the petitioner-assessee that the position, factual and legal, remains the same and, therefore, the Tribunal is bound by the findings and conclusions rendered by it in relation to the earlier asst. yr. 1997-98 which also stands approved in the light of the order passed by this Court.

(E) The Tribunal should decide the claim without in any manner being influenced by any observation in the original order as also in the order passed on the rectification application both of which do not survive in the light of our direction.

(F) The Rule is made absolute in above terms with no orders as to costs.