- (1.) As there are common facts in these two appeals, the same are being decided together for the sake of convenience.
(2.) The dispute in these appeals is in respect of the learned CIT(A) by and large confirming the additions made by the AO to the declared professional receipts of the assessee. The additions thus made by the AO were Rs. 46,250 for the asst. yr. 1989-90 and Rs. 56,100 for the asst. yr. 1988-89.
(3.) The facts of the case as stated in the orders of the authorities below are that the assessee is a reputed practising orthopaedic surgeon. The Department conducted a search under s. 132 at the premises of the assessee on 12th September, 1988 which, however, did not result in any seizure of money or any other valuable articles or things. Thereafter, the AO collected the details of operations carried out by the assessee during the previous years relevant to asst. yrs. 1988-89 and 1989-90 - from the hospitals and nursing homes with which the assessee was connected. After collecting these details, the AO also asked the assessee to furnish the lists of patients operated upon and other details. On comparison of the information collected by the AO with the lists furnished by the assessee, the AO noticed that in the assessees list a number of operations had not been mentioned. The AO, therefore, asked for explanation of the assessee and the assessee stated that the patients/operations not included in his lists were the cases where the doctor had not charged any fees at all either due to personal relations or on compassionate grounds. The authorities below have accepted this explanation of the assessee only partly. According to them, the number of patients/operations not appearing in the assessees lists was too large to be true. The assessee insisted upon the correctness of his version and pointed out that there was no basis to hold otherwise. Thereafter, the AO considered it reasonable to give allowance for free operations conducted by the assessee only to the extent of 20 per cent of the total cases. For the remaining cases he estimated professional receipts not disclosed by the assessee resulting into the impugned additions. During the course of proceedings before the learned CIT(A) the assessee reiterated his case as given during the course of assessment proceedings. It was argued that unless the AO could establish that the assessee had received any fees from any one of these patients, he could not add any notional amount to the income declared by the assessee as per the books of account maintained by the assessee. The learned CIT(A) did not find merits in the contentions of the assessee because according to him, it was unbelievable that a practising surgeon will operate upon more free patients than paying ones. Further, the learned CIT(A) could have appreciated the stand of the assessee, if he had disclosed the free cases also in his books of account or otherwise adduced evidence to prove that the assessee had conducted free operations. He, however, thought it fit to give the assessee allowance for free operations at 25 per cent of the total cases instead of 20 per cent as had been done by the AO.;