DCIT v. Dinesh Lakhmichand Rohira

Case snapshot

Sections / provisions: Evidence; Settlement Commission material

Questions before the Court / Tribunal

• Third-party Settlement Commission material without corroboration: The reported order rejects an addition founded only on statements/details furnished by a third party or searched person before the Settlement Commission where independent corroborative evidence against the taxpayer was absent.

Material facts and background

The brief facts are that the assessee is an individual earning income from

house property, business income and income from other sources. The assessee had filed its Return of Income (RoI) for the year under consideration on 31.08.2015, declaring a total income of ₹14,20,420/-. The return was processed u/s. 143(1) of the Act. Subsequently, the case was re-opened on 22.03.2021 u/s. 148 of the Act, based on the information received from the office of DCIT Central Circle, Mumbai. That information was in pursuance of a search action u/s. 132 of the Act, conducted on Wadhwa Group on 16.12.2015, wherein the alleged unexplained cash transactions undertaken by the said group were found. According to the information received, the respondent-assessee was alleged to have given cash loan of ₹1,75,00,000/- to Wadhwa Group and had earned interest in cash of ₹21,00,000/-

The respondent assessee objected to the re-opening on the basis of the

Officer had no reason to believe that income chargeable to tax had escaped assessment, within the meaning of section 147 of the Act. It was contended that there was no direct nexus or link between the information/material received and

3 ITA No. 5463/Mum/2024 & CO 254/Mum/2024 Dinesh Lakmichand Rohira

objection and based on the statement of the key person viz. Shri Arun Nagar recorded u/s. 132(4) of the Act came to the conclusion that respondent had given cash loan and received interest in cash and then proceeded to make the addition as aforesaid.

The assessee feeling aggrieved challenged the same before the CIT(A). The

Appellant / assessee submissions

We have heard the learned DR for the appellant and the learned AR for the

The learned AR on instructions has not pressed the cross-objection.

Revenue / respondent submissions

The judgment copy does not separately set out this component in a distinct section; refer to the full order and the reasoning section below.

Court / Tribunal analysis and reasoning

statement/submissions made on behalf of the Wadhwa Group before the ITSC, owning the cash loans taken and interest paid in cash. The information about the name, address and the PAN of the present assessee was part of the disclosure made by Wadhwa Group before the ITSC. In our considered view, such a material could not have been relied upon to make the impugned addition in the absence of any corroborative evidence as has rightly been held by the learned CIT(A). The learned CIT(A) has found and in our opinion rightly so that such material could have been used by the Assessing Officer for starting investigation and making inquiry so as to collect material against the assessee and the Assessing Officer was not justified in merely placing reliance on the statement/submissions made on

Operative decision and relief

behalf of the Wadhwa Group before the ITSC. It is trite that the assessee had no control over the statements/submissions made by Wadhwa Group before the ITSC and implicit reliance could not have been placed on such submissions to make the impugned addition in the hands of the assessee in the absence of any corroborative evidence.

Order pronounced in the open court on 4th December, 2024 Sd/[B R Baskaran] ACCOUNTANT MEMBER

Authorities and precedents appearing in the judgment

• No reliable precedent list was extracted automatically; use the full judgment for the citation chain.

This list is machine-assisted from the judgment text and is not a substitute for checking the full citation chain in the PDF.

Ratio and legal principle

The decision turns on Third-party Settlement Commission material without corroboration. The operative result is classified as Operative order controls. Read the rule only with the statutory version, factual findings and precedent chain recorded in the full judgment.

Why this judgment matters

The case is relevant to taxpayers, advisers and litigators dealing with Third-party Settlement Commission material without corroboration. Its practical value lies in the interaction between the statutory text, the evidentiary record and the procedural route followed in this case.

Practitioner action points

• Use the judgment as a fact-specific precedent: match the statutory version, assessment period, procedural stage and evidentiary record before relying on the result.
• Check whether a later High Court/Supreme Court order has affirmed, reversed, distinguished or rendered the decision academic.
• For litigation, attach the full judgment/order to the working paper and cite the paragraph/page supporting the proposition rather than relying on a headnote alone.

Full judgment and source trail

Read / download the clean local judgment copy

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