ITO cannot controvert judicial precedent of jurisdictional High Court: ITAT

The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT Chennai) in the matter of ITO Vs. Smt. Easwari Sukanya Krishnan has ruled quoted that revenue can not controvert judicial precedent of the jurisdictional High Court.

The sole grievance of the revenue in the captioned appeal is determination of base year from which the benefit of indexation would be available to the assessee. At the time of hearing, none appeared for assessee and accordingly, the appeal was disposed-off with the able assistance of Ld. Sr. DR who pleaded for restoration of assessment order. Upon perusal of case records, the appeal is disposed-off as under.

The assessee sold certain property during this year for Rs.394.70 Lacs. The assessee claimed indexation of cost from financial year 2001-02 and arrived at capital loss of Rs.48.35 Lacs. The said property was acquired by the assessee under inheritance from her mother by way of settlement deed dated 05.03.2015. The Ld. AO held that the assessee acquired the rights in the property only from the date of settlement and therefore, indexation benefit would be available only from financial year 2014-15. The assessee relied on the ruling of Hon’ble High Court of Madras in CIT vs Saroja Naidu (128 Taxmann.com 127) to support the computations. However, rejecting the same, Ld. AO allowed indexation from financial year 2014-15 and re-computed gains at Rs.210.09 Lacs. The Ld. CIT(A) allowed the claim in terms of cited decision of Hon’ble High Court of Madras. Aggrieved, the revenue is in further appeal before us.

We find that the adjudication in the impugned order follows binding judicial precedent of jurisdictional High Court. The revenue could not controvert this position. Therefore, we do not find any fault in the impugned order. The appeal stand dismissed.

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