Commissioner of Income Tax vs Shriram Transport Finance Co. Ltd.

R. Jayasimha Babu, J.—The Revenue contends that the mobile crane is a road transport vehicle and, therefore, does not qualify for the

additional depreciation provided u/s 32(1)(iia), proviso (b), of the Income Tax Act, 1961. The assessment year is 1985-86.

The assessee''s claim for depreciation was under Clause (b) of the proviso which refers to ""any machinery or plant, the whole of the actual cost

of which is allowed as a deduction (whether by way of depreciation or otherwise) in computing the income chargeable under the head ''Profits and

gains of business or profession'' of any one previous year"".

The mobile crane that was owned by the assessee and used by its lessee during the assessment year 1985-86 was a hydraulic crane, which was

used in quarrying granite blocks in the mines. The fact that the crane is capable of lifting weights and carrying them over a distance as also the fact

that the crane is capable of motion, being mounted on wheels, does not take away its essential character of being a machinery used in mining. It is

evident that unless the granite blocks are moved mining cannot continue and that without the aid of the mobile cranes the granite blocks extracted

cannot be shifted from one location to another. The crane is used in the quarry and not on the public roads for moving the granite that is quarried.

The granite is carried on the public roads by heavy transport vehicles and not by mobile cranes.

The purpose for which the cranes are used is altogether different from the purpose for which a road transport vehicle is used. Every vehicle,

which is mobile does not on that score become a road transport vehicle. Limited mobility, which is meant to make the machinery more

manoeuverable and more useful in the activity in which it is engaged does not make it a road transport vehicle.

The view taken by the Revenue was far fetched and wholly unfounded having regard to the language employed in the statutory provision.

The Tribunal has rightly held that the mobile crane used by the assessee''s lessee in quarrying operation is not a road transport vehicle but it is an

item of machinery.

One other question that was raised before the Tribunal was as to whether the lessor of the machinery is entitled to investment allowance. That

question has been considered and answered in favour of the lessor by the apex court in the case of Commissioner of Income Tax, Karnataka,

Bangalore Vs. M/s. Shaan Finance (P) Ltd., Bangalore, .

Both the questions referred to us are, therefore, answered in favour of the assessee and against the Revenue. The assessee shall be entitled to

costs in the sum of Rs. 2,000.