Bombay High Court: In the present appeal filed under Section 260-A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 preferred against the order dated 09-08-2017, passed by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), Pune Bench wherein the Tribunal held that the order passed by Commissioner of Income Tax-3, Mumbai on 19-12-2014, transferring the assessment jurisdiction from Mumbai to Pune is wrong as the assessing officer would continue to exercise the jurisdiction in case of the assessee inasmuch as PAN of the assessee came to be transferred only 29-12-2014, a Division Bench of Dhiraj Singh Thakur and Valmiki SA Menezes, JJ., held that there is no illegality in the impugned order as the transfer of PAN is consequential to the order of transfer of jurisdiction and that it is a PAN, which follows the jurisdiction and not vice versa.
The assessee filed its return of income for the assessment year 2010-11 at Mumbai which was processed under Section 143(1) Income Tax Act, 1961. Subsequently, the case was selected for scrutiny under CASS and since the assessee had entered in international transactions during the relevant period, reference under Section 92CA(1) was made to Transfer Pricing Officer by assessing officer to determine Arm's Length Price (ALP) of international transactions with AEs. The TPO vide order made an adjustment of Rs.6,36,13,021/-.
Thus, the assessing officer made the draft assessment order under Section 144-C(1) of the Income Tax Act against which, the assessee filed objections before the Dispute Resolution Panel who upheld the findings of the TPO. The assessee, in the meantime, had shifted its registered office from Mumbai to Pune and in that regard, the Registrar of Companies, Maharashtra had issued a certificate of transfer which was brought to the notice of the concerned ITO. A request was also made to the Assessing Officer, Mumbai for transferring the jurisdiction to Pune, which prayer was allowed by the Commissioner of Income Tax-3, Mumbai.
The Assessing Officer proceeded to pass the final Order of assessment and the Tribunal deciding on the issue of jurisdiction held that after the Commissioner of Income Tax-3, Mumbai had passed an order transferring the assessment jurisdiction from Mumbai to Pune, the assessing officer at Mumbai had no jurisdiction over the file of the assessee on the date when the Order of assessment came to be passed by him.
The Court noted that the Tribunal rejected the argument of the revenue that the assessing officer would continue to exercise the jurisdiction in the case of the assessee inasmuch as PAN of the assessee came to be transferred only 29-12-2014.
Thus, the Court held that the transfer of PAN is consequential to the order of transfer of jurisdiction and that it is a PAN, which follows the jurisdiction and not vice versa.
[Pr Commissioner of Income Tax-1 v. Capstone Securities Analysis Pvt. Ltd., 2022 SCC OnLine Bom 8091, decided on 02-12-2022]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Mr. Suresh Kumar for the Appellant;
Mr. Mihir Naniwadekar a/w Mr. Suyog Bhave & Ms. Rucha Vaidya i/b PDS Legal for the Respondent.
*Arunima Bose, Editorial Assistant has reported this brief.
