Team Herald
PANJIM: The High Court of Bombay at Goa has directed the Income Tax Department (Goa) to refund Rs 13.77 lakh approx to the Siolim Urban Co-op Credit Society Ltd, amount which was held by the Department.
The matter pertains to an appeal before the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) by the Society in respect to the assessment for the year 2014-15 assessment years. To secure interim reliefs, the Society had deposited 20 per cent of the assessed amount, corresponding to Rs 4.5 lakh approx before the Commissioner.
The appeal was disposed off in November 2019 wherein the Society’s contentions were accepted and the assessment order, to the extent was contrary to such contentions, were even interfered with.
However, for the assessment years 2017-18, the assessing officer (AO) made an order contrary to the one by the Commissioner (Appeals) on the same issue based on which, the Society had to pay a tax of Rs 19.11 lakh approx.
“The petitioner (Society), through communication dated December 20, 2019, pointed out to the AO that the time limit for the payment was too short, and further, the petitioner was in the process of appealing the order for the years 2017-18. The petitioner also pointed out that its similar matter for the 2014-15 assessment years had already been decided by Commissioner (Appeals) in favour of the Society and the AO was requested to withhold the proceedings till disposal of the Appeal,” reads an extract of the judgment by division bench of Justice M S Sonak and M S Jawalkar.
It was despite the contention put up by the Society, the IT Department issued communications to the Karnataka Bank and the Corporation Bank to seize the accounts of the Society and to remit the demanded amounts forthwith to the department. The court, during the hearing observed that the Society had appealed the assessment order for the years 2017-18 much before the Commissioner (Appeals) and Income Tax Officer Ward-I (4) could address the communications to the Banks over the remission of the demanded tax. “Further, it is clear that the Respondents (IT) had, with themselves, an amount of Rs 5.32 lakh, which corresponds to a little more than 20 per cent of the demanded tax amount of Rs 19.11 lakh approx for the assessment years 2017-18,” it further said.
The bench also opined that there was absolutely no justification for the respondents to recover the amount of Rs 13.77 lakh approx from the petitioner by issuance of notice to the Karnataka Bank and that the former had with themselves an amount of Rs 5.32 lakh approx corresponding to more than 20 per cent of the demanded amount for the assessment years 2017-18.
In its order, the court quashed the notice addressed to Karnataka bank while directing the IT Department to refund Rs 13.77 lakh approx to the petitioner within a period of four weeks from the date of the verdict on December 15.
The respondents are also asked to not enforce their demand for Rs 19.11 lakh for the 2017-18 assessment years until the disposal of the appeal pending before the concerned Commissioner (Appeals).
