RAJESH BINDAL, J. - (1.) THE assessee has approached this Court by filing the present appeal raising the following substantial questions of law 'the Tribunal') in ITA No. 468/Asr/2001 for the asst. yr. 1998 -99 : "(i) Whether the order of the IT authorities treating the cash credits in question as the income of the assessee suffer from perversity and is arbitrary and is based upon mere assumptions and presumptions and surmises and conjectures and more so when the creditors themselves have been produced and their statements have been recorded and their affidavits have been adduced and they have confirmed the advancement of the credits and repayment of the credits and the advances made by most of the creditors have been believed by the IT authorities themselves? (ii) Whether, without rejecting the account books, additions can be made of various cash creditors in the facts and circumstances of the case ? (iii) Whether the impugned orders of the IT authorities are ultra vires of s. 68 of the IT Act ? (iv) Whether, in the facts and circumstances of the case, the appellant -assessee had discharged the burden of taking the amount in question on credit -
(2.) DURING the course of assessment proceedings, it was found that the assessee had introduced cash credits in his books of account in the name of 17 persons, the details whereof mentioned in the order of assessment are extracted below : Sr. Name of the creditor Date of deposit Amount Rs. No. 1. Bhola Singh 04.03.1998 19,000 2. Gurpreet Kumar 30.11.1997 15000 19,000 21.03.1998 2000 23.03.1998 2000 19000 3 Jagir Singh 01.12.1997 15,000 4. Bhagwan Singh 25.01.1998 19,000 5. Jagmail Singh 02.12.1997 10,000 6. Amrit Lal 26.01.1998 18,000 7. Darshan Lal 27.02.1998 18,000 8. Sukhwinder Singh 15.03.1998 11,500 9. Sukhdarshan Singh 23.02.1998 19,000 10. Balkaran Singh 02.04.1997 19,000 11. Pawan Kumar 27.03.1998 10,000 12. Madan Lal 19.03.1998 10,000 13. Nachhatar Singh 01.04.1997 6,000 14. Natha Singh 18.04.1997 11,000 15. Avtar Singh 25.06.1997 15000 18,000 05.03.1998 3000 16. Jagir Singh numberdar 04.03.1998 18,000 17. Surinder Kumar 26.03.1998 17,000
(3.) AS the genuineness of the credit was doubted by the AO, the issue was confronted to the assessee. Considering the the tune of Rs. 2,57,500 introduced in the books of account, during the year in question, to be not genuine and accordingly made additions on that account. In appeal before the CIT(A) Bathinda, the explanation furnished by the assessee to the tune of credits of Rs. 52,000 was found to be genuine and accordingly the additions were deleted to that extent, however, the addition of balance amount of Rs. 2,05,500 was confirmed. In further appeal before the Tribunal, each and every transaction was examined by the Tribunal vis -a -vis, the evidence on record and the explanations furnished by the assessee and after a detailed discussion, some of the additions were deleted while some of them were confirmed where, as a fact, it was found that though the amounts had been credited by the assessee in his books of account in the name of those persons and even though the persons were existing but the genuineness of the entry could not be proved for the reason that the persons were not capable of advancing the amount to the assessee keeping in view their financial position. Some of the creditors of the assessee were found to be mere labourers, milk vendors or some low paid employees who had their own families to support out of the income earned by them instead of advancing the loans to the assessee even without carrying any interest. Accordingly, on appreciation of the material on record, the authorities below concurrently found that the assessee had not been able to satisfy about the creditworthiness of the creditors and consequently the genuineness of the transaction.;