Commissioner Of Income Tax, New ... vs France Air Private Limited
2009 Latest Caselaw 1374 Del

*              THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
%

                             Judgment delivered on : 13.04.2009

                           ITA No. 884/2006

COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX
NEW DELHI                              ..... Appellant
           Through: Ms Prem Lata Bansal & Ms Anshul
                    Sharma, Advocates

                                 versus

FRANCE AIR PVT. LTD.                              ..... Respondent

             Through:        Mr U.A. Rana & MrAbhishek K. Rao,
                             Advocates

CORAM :-
HON'BLE MR JUSTICE BADAR DURREZ AHMED
HON'BLE MR JUSTICE RAJIV SHAKDHER

1. Whether the Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ?

2. To be referred to Reporters or not ?

3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest ?

RAJIV SHAKDHER, J

1. In this case the Revenue has preferred an appeal under Section

260A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act')

against judgment dated 16.09.2005 passed by the Income Tax Appellate

Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as the 'Tribunal') in TDS no.

34(Del)2004 pertaining to assessment year 2002-03.

2. The assessee herein is a General Sales Agent (in short 'GSA') for

Air France Ltd. The assessee was passing on discounted fare tickets to

its IATA agents. The Assessing Officer found that the assessee-GSA

had failed to deduct Rs 1,32,188/- in respect of supplementary

commission to the tune of Rs 48,58,566/- paid by the assessee to its

agents. It is apparent from the Tribunal's order that the Assessing Officer

had noted the fact that the assessee had 55 such agents conducting its

business and that the assessee had obtained a certificate under Section

197 of the Act for deduction of tax at a lower rate in respect of 25 such

agents. However, even after giving effect to the said certificate issued in

favour of the assessee, there was a short-deduction of tax at source by the

assessee to the tune of Rs 1,32,188/-.

3. The assessee being aggrieved by the order of the Assessing Officer

preferred an appeal to the Commissioner of Income Tax(Appeals)

[hereinafter referred to as the 'CIT(A)'], who sustained the order of the

Assessing Officer.

4. In a further appeal to the Tribunal the assessee placed reliance on

the judgment dated 19.10.2004 passed in TDS No. 58(Del)03 titled 'CIT

vs Singapore Airlines. The Tribunal passed the impugned judgment by

basing it substantially on its own judgment in the case of Singapore

Airlines (supra). The necessary consequence was that it allowed the

appeal of the assessee.

5. In view of our judgment delivered today i.e., 13.04.2009 in a batch

of appeals, wherein the lead case, is entitled as CIT vs Singapore

Airlines; being ITA No. 306/2005, the appeal of the Revenue has been

allowed. Therefore, this appeal has to be allowed. It is ordered

accordingly, with a direction that the Tribunal will re-examine the issue

afresh.

                                              RAJIV SHAKDHER, J




April 13, 2009/kk                      BADAR DURREZ AHMED, J