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Judgment
PER NAVEEN CHANDRA [ACCOUNTANT MEMBER]:
The above captioned appeals are preferred by the assessee against the order dated 29.09.2025, passed by Learned Pr. Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals), Jhandewalan Extension, New Delhi [hereinafter referred to as ‘ld. CIT(A)], under section 250 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 [hereinafter referred to as, ‘Act’] arising out of the separate assessment orders dated 26.02.2024 and 28.02.2024 passed by the ACIT, Central Circle-25, Delhi (hereinafter referred as ‘the AO’) u/s 153C of the Act for Assessment Years 2015-16 & 2018-19.
The assessee has raised following grounds of appeal in ITA No.7633/Del/2025 for A.Y. 2015-16 :
“1.That the notice issued and the assessment order passed under Section 153C of the Income Tax Act, 1961 ('the Act') by the Assessing Officer ('AO') are fundamentally flawed, being without jurisdiction, barred by limitation, and passed in violation of the statutory framework governing such proceedings, thereby rendering them legally unsustainable.
2.The notice issued under Section 153C of the Act and the consequent assessment proceedings are illegal, void ab initio, and without jurisdiction, as the statutory preconditions for invoking Section 153C of the Act were not satisfied, rendering the proceedings bad in law and liable to be quashed.
3.That on the facts and in the circumstances of the case, the AO has erred in failing to record the requisite satisfaction as mandated under law, thereby rendering the impugned proceedings invalid, bad in law, and without jurisdiction.
4.That the approval granted under Section 153D of the Act for passing the assessment order under Section 153C is invalid, as it has been granted in a mechanical manner, without independent application of mind, rendering the assessment order bad in law.
5.That on the facts and in law, the approval under section 153D stands vitiated due to non-application of mind, as both the proposal and the approval are mere carbon copies across years and group entities, issued in the fag end, in breach of the statutory mandate.
6.That the approval under Section 153D of the Act is bad in law as both the proposal and the approval under Section 153D were invalid being issued without a Document Identification Number (DIN) in violation of CBDT Circular No. 19/2019 dated 14.08.2019.
7.On the facts and in law, the AO/CIT(A) failed to appreciate that, in the absence of incriminating material found during the search, the interference with a completed assessment and additions under Section 153C of the Act are unsustainable and without jurisdiction.
8.On the facts and in law, excel sheets and tally data retrieved from electronic devices are inadmissible as evidence due to non-compliance with Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and the CBDT Manual, rendering the additions made by the AO liable to be deleted.
9.On the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the AO has erred in relying upon the retracted statements and material seized from the residential premises of Mr. Sunil Kumar Gupta without providing an opportunity to cross-examine despite specific request.
10.On the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the AO erred in passing the assessment order under Section 153C of the Act without generating, allotting, quoting, and communicating a valid DIN, in contravention of Circular No. 19 of 2019 dated 14.08.2019, rendering the entire proceedings and assessment order invalid.
11.That the CIT(A) erred in upholding the validity of the notice and assessment under Section 153C and in sustaining the additions, without independent application of mind and without properly considering the detailed submissions filed, rendering the order arbitrary and legally unsustainable.
12.On the facts and circumstances of the case, the CIT(A) failed to appreciate the fact that the additions/disallowances made by the AO are beyond the scope of the satisfaction note.
13.On the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the AO erred in making illegal additions and completing the assessment at income of Rs. 3,00,71,990/-.
14.On the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the necessary ingredients for invocation of Section 69A and 69C of the Act are not present in the instant case and as such the assessment framed under the said sections is illegal and bad in law and the CIT(A) has erred in not appreciating the same.
15.On the facts and circumstances of the case, AO has wrongly made addition of Rs. 2,75,00,000/- under Section 69A of the Act on account of alleged unexplained money and CIT(A) has erred in upholding the same. The said addition is erroneous, unjustified, and liable to be deleted.
16.On the facts and circumstances of the case, AO has wrongly made addition of Rs. 96,000/- under Section 69A of the Act on account of alleged unexplained money and CIT(A) has erred in upholding the same. The said addition is erroneous, unjustified. and liable to be deleted.
17.On the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the AO has failed to appreciate that the assessee has not undertaken any cash transactions during the year under consideration and the additions made the AO on account of alleged cash transactions are based on conjunctures and surmises and the CIT(A) has erred in upholding the same.
18.On the facts and circumstances of the case, AO has wrongly made addition of Rs. 8,27,880/- under Section 69C of the Act on account of alleged commission expenditure and CIT(A) has erred in upholding the same. The said addition is erroneous, unjustified, and liable to be deleted.
19.On the facts and circumstances of the case, AO has wrongly made addition of Rs. 3,92,785/- under Section 69C of the Act on account of interest expenditure and CIT(A) has erred in upholding the same. The said addition is erroneous, unjustified, and liable to be deleted.
20.On the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the AO erred in charging interest u/s 234A, 234B and 234C of the Act and initiating penalty proceedings under Section 271(1)(c) of the Act. That in view of the facts and circumstances of the case, the appellant craves leave to add, amend or alter any of the grounds of appeal.”
Since the above captioned appeals were heard together and the facts in issues and grounds (except amounts) are identical, both the appeals are being disposed of by this common order for the sake of convenience and brevity.
Brief facts of the case are that assessee is an individual who had filed its Original return of income under Section 139(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the “Act”), assessee on 30.11.2015 declaring returned income of Rs. 12,55,320/-. A search and seizure proceeding under Section 132 of the Act was carried out on the Alankit Group, Sh. Alok K Agarwal, his son Ankit Agarwal and some of the close associates and key employees of Sh. Alok K Agarwal on 18.10.2019. During the course of search and seizure operation, certain incriminating documents were found from the premises in the name of the assessee, hence a notice u/s 153C of the Act dated 22.06.2023 was issued to assessee asking to file the return of income for the relevant assessment year. In response to notice issued u/s 153C of the Act, the assessee filed its return u/s 153C of the I.T. Act, 1961 on 05.07.2023.
The satisfaction notes drawn by the Assessing Officer (AO) of the searched person and drawn by Jurisdictional Assessing Officer (JAO) were provided to the assessee on 06.12.2023 and copy of the incriminating seized documents in the form of ledger accounts have been provided to assessee during the course of assessment proceedings in the show cause notice. The assessing officer has completed the assessment at an income of Rs. 3,00,71,990/- after making the following additions : -a) Addition of Rs. 2,75,00,000/- made under Section 69A of the Act on account of alleged unexplained money.
Addition of Rs. 96,000/- made under Section 69A of the Act on account of alleged unexplained money.
Addition of Rs. 8,27,880/- made under Section 69C of the Act on account of alleged unexplained commission expenditure.
Addition of Rs. 3,92,785/- made under Section 69C of the Act on account of alleged unexplained interest expenditure.
Aggrieved, assessee was in appeal before the learned CIT(A) who dismissed the appeal of the assessee. Aggrieved, assessee is in appeal before us.
At the outset, the ld counsel of the assessee submitted that the earlier AYs also involved similar issues and the same have been heard by the coordinate bench of Delhi ITAT and the order of ITAT is awaited.
Per contra, learned DR did not raise any serious objection and relied upon the order of AO/CIT(A).
We have heard the rival submissions and perused the material available on record. The assessee’s assertion that similar/identical issues raised in earlier years involved, have been heard by the coordinate Bench of ITAT Delhi, has gone unrebutted. In view of the same, we dispose of these appeals to be decided in accordance with the decision of the ITAT in earlier years with liberty to the assessee to file appeal afresh should it feel the issues involved in the present appeal has not been decided in appeal of the earlier years.
In the result, both the appeals filed by the assessee in ITA Nos.7633 & 7785/Del/2025 are allowed for statistical purposes.