IN THE INCOME-TAX APPELLATE TRIBUNAL, MUMBAI “I” BENCH, MUMBAI BEFORE SMT. BEENA PILLAI, JUDICIAL MEMBER AND(cid:1)

SHRI BIJAYANANDA PRUSETH, ACCOUNTANT MEMBER DCIT, Room No. 627, 6^th Floor, vs. Sita Information Networking Kautilya Bhavan, BKC Bandra East, Computing USA INC, Finance Mumbai-400051. Directors Office Sita INC USA Suite

900 3100 Cumberland BLVD Atlanta FA 30339 Foreigin United States, USA-99999.

PAN/GIR No: AAVCS5544D (Appellant) (Respondent)

Assessee by Shri Ketan Ved & Shri Nianad Patade Revenue by Shri Satya Pal Kumar (CIT DR)

Date of Hearing 16.03.2026 Date of Pronouncement 29.04.2026 O R D E R PER BIJYANANDA PRUSETH, AM:

This appeal filed by the assessee emanates from the order passed under section 250 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (in short, ‘Act’) by the Commissioner of Income-Tax (Appeals), 58, Mumbai [in short, ‘CIT(A)’], dated 11.09.2025 for the assessment year (AY) 2022-23.

2. The grounds of appeal raised by the assessee are as under:

“1. Whether on the facts and circumstances of the case, the Ld. CIT (A) has erred in not appreciating that the receipt of Rs.79,47,67,624/-from Passenger Systems Solutions ('Passenger Services') is taxable in the hands of the assessee as Fee for Technical Services/Fees for Included Services under Section 9(1)(vii) of the Income Tax Act as well as under Article 12 of India-USA DTAA?

2. The appellant craves leave to amend or alter any ground or add a new ground which may be necessary."

3. The only issue contested by the revenue pertains to CIT(A) deleting addition made by the AO towards Passenger System Solutions treating the same in the taxable in the hands of the assessee as Fees for Technical Services (FTS) u/s 9(1)(vii) of the Act as well Article 12 of DDTA between India and USA. At the outset, the Ld. AR of the assessee submitted that the issue is fully covered by the decision of the ITAT in appellant’s own case in ITA Nos. 6436, 6439 to 6444 & 6470/Mum/2024 for AYs: 2014-15 to 2021-22 dated 02.04.2025. The Ld. Sr. DR of the revenue fairly agreed that the issue stands covered by the above decision. For ready reference, the relevant part of the ITAT decision is reproduced below:-

“3. We heard the parties and perused the material on record. The facts pertaining to the issue under consideration are that the assessee has entered into Passenger Services contracts with Indian airlines, mainly to National Aviation Company of India Limited ['NACIL', otherwise known as Air India Limited] towards rendering of services through Passenger System Solutions. These Passenger services are provided from the assessee's data centre in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Under the agreement in order to provide NACIL and its travel agents with on-line access to the service, remote access to the software is granted by the assessee. The services provided by the appellant as contained in Schedule 5A_1 of the agreement are in connection with the Core PSS and Related Applications, Frequent Flyer Program (FFP) and Internet Booking Engine (IBE). The assessee provides a full airline passenger reservation and departure control service comprising of the following elements:

Reservations Fares & Pricing Departure Control Message Switching Flight Information & Flight Tracking Baggage Reconciliation Internet Booking and Frequent Flyer services

4. The main contention of the Id AR before us is that these services are standard services rendered using the software technology and that they are not the technical services. The Id AR argued that the Passenger Reservation System Services ("PSS") software of the Assessee is not made available to either NACIL or any of the other customers worldwide but is used by the Assessee itself on the mainframe computers which it owns in its Atlanta Data Center, in Georgia, USA, in order to provide services to those customers in connection with passenger reservations, flight bookings, electronic tickets, etc. The Id AR further submitted that the prospective passengers, travel agents and airline staff ca