Delhi H.C : The assessee sold a house situated in village Shahpur Jat for a sum of Rs. 30 lakhs. The capital gain on the said sale proceeds was invested by her in the purchase and renovation of a property at 1, Ram Kishore Road, Delhi.

High Court Of Delhi

CIT vs. Sunita Aggarwal

Sections 54, 260A

T.S. Thakur & B.N. Chaturvedi, JJ.

IT Appeal No. 1087 of 2005

16th November, 2005

Counsel Appeared

Ms. P.L. Bansal, for the Petitioner : Dr. Rakesh Gupta, for the Respondent

ORDER

By the court :

The assessee sold a house situated in village Shahpur Jat for a sum of Rs. 30 lakhs. The capital gain on the said sale proceeds was invested by her in the purchase and renovation of a property at 1, Ram Kishore Road, Delhi. Benefit under s. 54 was claimed by the assessee qua the said investment which was declined by the AO on the ground that the sale transaction of the property had been made only on paper. In appeal the CIT(A) upheld the disallowance of deduction on the ground that the property purchased by the assessee in fact comprised two distinct units owned by two different persons. The CIT(A) was of the view that the assessee was entitled to the benefit of deduction only to the extent of purchase of one unit. The AO was, therefore, directed to restrict the benefit under s. 54 to 500 sq. yds. of land purchased by the assessee from one of the vendors. In a further appeal before the Tribunal the said view has been reversed and the assessee held entitled to a deduction under s. 54. The Tribunal has on an appreciation of the available material recorded a clear finding of fact to the effect that the property purchased by her was a single unit and was being used for residential purposes continuously ever since the possession of the different portions of the said property was taken over from the vendors. The Tribunal held that the execution of four different sale deeds in respect of four different portions of the property did not materially affect the nature of the transaction or the nature of the property acquired since the property in question was being used by the assessee for her own purposes and investment made in the purchase of the same was therefore eligible for deduction under s. 54. The Tribunal has in this regard observed as under : “Not one fact of the above overwhelming evidence in favour of the assessee stands rebutted at the hands of the Department. This leads but to the conclusion that the property, though purchased from two different persons, by virtue of 4 different sale instances in the shape of 4 different parcels, constitutes one single residential unit or house of the assessee. The assessee has been residing there with her husband and children ever since. She has produced on record all possible evidence in this regard. All of this evidence is conclusive in nature.

The Department has not been able to rebut the same. In view of the above, the requirement under s. 54 of the Act stands squarely met. Therefore, the exemption under s. 54 is due to the assessee in toto. The learned CIT (A) was not correct in restricting the exemption to Rs. 9.60 lakhs plus the cost as against the assessee’s claim of Rs. 22,75,465. The purchase from Shanti Agarwal and M/s Jupitor Builders (P) Ltd., has erroneously been treated as separate and distinct. The assessee cannot be said to have acquired two properties. So much so, even though, the learned CIT(A) himself admits that the assessee has only one residential house, he restricted the area of the residential house and held that the assessee had purchased two houses.”

2. In the light of the above finding of fact recorded by the Tribunal no question of law much less a substantial question of law arises for our consideration in this appeal. This appeal accordingly fails and is hereby dismissed.

[Citation : 284 ITR 20]

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