Income Tax Act, 1961

Section 254(1)

Appeal (Tribunal) - Order of Tribunal - Open remand by Tribunal, instead of adjudicating the issue -

Assessee by way of appeal filed under section 260A challenged order of Tribunal directing adoption of CUP method as against TNMM method to benchmark international transactions undertaken by assesse with its AE. Assessee's case was that there was misreading of previous order, dated 21-12-2012, passed by Tribunal for earlier assessment years, while deciding appeal for concerned assessment year 2009-10. While earlier order made open remand to decide as to which was most appropriate method to be adopted, CUP Method or TNMM Method and Tribunal, by the impugned Order, dated 16-11-2016 for assessment year 2009-10 has apparently, fallen into error, in holding that CUP Method was the appropriate method and the issue was already decided by Tribunal, which was not the correct reading of the previous Order, dated 21-12-2012. Held: A bare reading of order passed by Tribunal for earlier years, dated 21-12-2012 would show that it was an open remand and no specific method was finalized by Tribunal in previous order of the appeal for previous assessment years. This misreading of previous order by Tribunal while passing impugned order on 16-11-2016 resulted in multiplicity of litigation and after remand also, a second round of appeals again came up before Tribunal itself, which appeals were still pending before ITAT. Tribunal, being the final fact finding body, ought to have finalized the exercise of final fact finding at its own level, instead of remanding cases again and again, which defeated the very purpose of expeditious disposal of TP adjustments in case of International Transactions under section 92C, read with relevant Rules. Accordingly, order of Tribunal was set aside with request to decide the issue appropriately without open remand.

REFERRED :

FAVOUR : Matter remanded.

A.Y. : 2009-10

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