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Conversion Of Unaccounted Money Through The Cloak Of Share Capital/Premium Must Be Carefully Scrutinised

In CIVIL APPEAL NO. OF 2019, Principal Commissioner of Income Tax (Central) - 1vs NRA Iron & Steel Pvt. Ltd., the Supreme Court has held that the practice of conversion of un-accounted money through the cloak of Share Capital/Premium must be subjected to careful scrutiny. This would be particularly so in the case of private placement of shares, where a higher onus is required to be placed on the Assessee since the information is within the personal knowledge of the Assessee. The Assessee is under a legal obligation to prove the receipt of share capital/premium to the satisfaction of the AO, failure of which, would justify addition of the said amount to the income of the Assessee.

Referring to various judgments in the matter, the bench summarized the principles as follows:

1) The assessee is under a legal obligation to prove the genuineness of the transaction, the identity of the creditors, and credit-worthiness of the investors who should have the financial capacity to make the investment in question, to the satisfaction of the AO, so as to discharge the primary onus.

2) The Assessing Officer is duty bound to investigate the credit-worthiness of the creditor/ subscriber, verify the identity of the subscribers, and ascertain whether the transaction is genuine, or these are bogus entries of name-lenders.

3) If the enquiries and investigations reveal that the identity of the creditors to be dubious or doubtful, or lack credit-worthiness, then the genuineness of the transaction would not be established. In such a case, the assessee would not have discharged the primary onus contemplated by Section 68 of the Act.

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