The mandatory prior approval under Section 153D of the Income Tax Act requires an independent, judicious application of mind to the specific assessment record of each assessee. Mechanical approval constitutes a jurisdictional failure, rendering the resulting assessment order invalid and liable to be quashed.

PHYSICAL HEARING

O R D E R

PER RAJ PAL YADAV, VP

The separate orders of ld. Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) [in short ‘the CIT (A)’] dated 29.11.2024 passed in assessment years 2015-16, 2017-18 to 2019-20 are being challenged by way of cross-appeals, except in assessment year 2015-16, where assessee alone is in appeal.

Since common issues are involved, rather we can say that impugned orders are verbatim except difference of quantum of amount in each year, therefore, we deem it appropriate to dispose of all these appeals by this common order. For the facility of reference, we take note of following detail in a tabular form which will exhibit appeal number, assessment year, appellant, date of CIT’s order and date of AO’s order in a more scientific manner, which reads as under :

The assessee has taken seven grounds of appeal in each year, whereas Revenue has taken five, six and seven grounds of appeal in assessment year 2017-18, 2018-29 and 2019-20 respectively. We take note of these grounds raised by the parties, which read as under :

ITA No.1252/CHD/2024 : (Assessee's Appeal)

1. That order passed u/s 250 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 by the Learned Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals)-5, Ludhiana is against law and facts on the file in as much as he was not justified to uphold various additions/disallowances made by the Learned Assessing Officer despite the fact that no incriminating material was found for the year under appeal during the course of search conducted on 25.04.2018.

2. That the Learned CIT(A) gravely erred in upholding the validity of the assessment order despite the fact that the approval granted by the Learned Additional Commissioner of Income Tax as statutorily required u/s 153D was merely mechanical and ritualistic without application of mind.

3. That he was not justified to uphold the action of the Learned Assessing Officer in arbitrarily rejecting the books of accounts by invoking the provisions of Section 145(3) of the Income Tax, 1961.

4. That he was further not justified to arbitrarily uphold the addition of Rs. 3,47,132/- by applying an arbitrary G. P. rate on the alleged bogus purchases of Rs. 47,55,239/- made from M/s Goyal Enterprises u/s 68 of the Income Tax Act, 1961.

5. That he was further not justified to uphold the action of the Learned Assessing Officer in arbitrarily estimating the turnover of the appellant at Rs. 46,30,00,000/- as against Rs. 46,28,26,050/- declared in its audited accounts.

6. That he further gravely erred in upholding the action of the Learned Assessing Officer in applying an arbitrary G. P. rate on the estimated turnover by upholding rejection of the books of accounts, thereby working out addition of Rs. 20,38,451/-as against Rs. 50,642/-.

7. That the Assessment Order dated 08.09.2021 passed u/s 153A of the Act by the Learned Assessing Officer is non-est and bad in law in as much as the proceedings have not been conducted in the manner prescribed by the departmental instructions from time to time which are mandatory for compliance by the Learned Authorities particularly with respect to mentioning of Document Identification Number (DIN).

ITA No.1253/CHD/2024 : (Assessee's Appeal)

1. That order passed u/s 250 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 by the Learned Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals)-5, Ludhiana is against law and facts on the file in as much as he was not justified to uphold various additions/ disallowances made by the Learned Assessing Officer despite the fact that no incriminating material was found for the year under appeal during the course of sear