The officer has added the whole of a property purchase shown against my client's PAN in the AIS, although my client never bought it. Is a reported entry enough to sustain an addition?
No. The Mumbai Bench dismissed the Revenue's appeal and upheld the deletion of a Rs 2.53 crore addition made on the strength of reported information alone, holding that the Assessing Officer is not expected to make an addition mathematically simply on the basis of information without verification of the facts. The decisive fact was that the names of the purchasers in the reported data were different persons and only the assessee's PAN had been tagged against them.
Decided by the ITAT (Om Prakash Kant, Accountant Member and Pawan Singh, Judicial Member) on 2026-08-20, reported as ITA No. 4738/Mum/2026, assessment year 2015-16 (ITAT Mumbai Bench 'G'); instituted 23 April 2026, heard 29 July 2026, pronounced 20 August 2026. It bears on section 69, section 147, section 148, section 133(6), section 285BA, section 285BB of the Income Tax Act 1961, in Assessment & Scrutiny, Evidence & Burden of Proof, Reassessment & Reopening and Cash Credits & Unexplained Money matters.
This is the fact pattern behind a very large share of AIS-driven additions: the reporting entity — here the Sub-Registrar — enters the right transaction against the wrong PAN, and the entire consideration is then attributed to whoever the PAN belongs to. Three things in this order are worth carrying into a reply. First, the deletion did not turn on the assessee proving a negative; it turned on the reported data itself, which named Mrs Smita Ganesh Hazare against one transaction and Sau. Neerja Bharat Sachdev against the other, and which was marked 'not matched'. Read the reported data before you argue about it — the answer is often on its face. Second, the CIT(A)'s formulation, which the Tribunal endorsed, is the sentence to use: the role of the Assessing Officer is not merely to add mathematically the amounts appearing in the Annual Information System to the returned income. Third, the CIT(A) faulted the officer for not exercising his power under s.133(6) to get a report from the Sub-Registrar or certified copies of the sale deeds; the officer had the tool to verify and did not use it, and that omission is what made the addition unsustainable. A practitioner should ask for that verification in writing during the assessment, so that the failure to make it is on the record. Note the limits. The Tribunal's own reasoning is short and is an affirmance of concurrent findings; the phrase used is that the Bench found no merit or justification for filing such an appeal. It is not authority that an AIS entry can never support an addition — it is authority that an unverified one cannot, where the assessee denies the transaction and points to a specific discrepancy.
Binding on the AO and CIT(A) within the Tribunal's jurisdiction. Persuasive elsewhere.
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The assessee, an individual, had filed no return of income for the year. The Assessing Officer had information on the Network Management System on the Income Tax Business Application portal that she had purchased immovable property of more than Rs 30 lakh during the relevant financial year, the reported purchase being Rs 2.53 crore, and on that footing recorded reasons and reopened the assessment under section 147, issuing notice under section 148 on 15 April 2021. In response she filed a return on 30 November 2021 declaring income of Rs 27,66,080. The Assessing Officer recorded that she had failed to furnish the sale deed, purchase deed and source of income, and by show-cause notice dated 27 March 2023 confronted her with reported purchases aggregating Rs 3.82 crore, being Rs 2.53 crore plus Rs 1.29 crore. She replied with a copy of the purchase deed dated 30 March 2015 showing that she had purchased one property at Rustomjee Azziano, Thane for Rs 1.29 crore, together with the ICICI Bank loan sanction and Form 26AS, and stated that she had purchased no other property. The Assessing Officer added Rs 2.53 crore by assessment order dated 23 May 2023. Before the CIT(A) she explained the reported data itself: against the purchase of Rs 1.00 crore the name of the purchaser in the annual information return data was Mrs Smita Ganesh Hazare, and against the purchase of Rs 1.53 crore it was Sau. Neerja Bharat Sachdev, so that the names did not match hers although her PAN was mentioned against the purchaser transaction, and the data was marked 'not matched'. The CIT(A) deleted the addition, holding that the role of the Assessing Officer is not merely to add mathematically the amounts appearing in the Annual Information System to the returned income, that where the assessee specifically denied the transaction and pointed to the discrepancy the officer should have obtained information under section 133(6) such as a report from the Sub-Registrar or certified copies of the sale deeds, and that he had mechanically relied on computer-generated data and failed to link the assessee with the material on record. The Revenue appealed, its second ground being that the CIT(A) ought at least to have remanded the issue of name mismatch for examination and corroboration.
The Revenue's appeal was dismissed. On its own independent appreciation of the facts the Bench found that the Assessing Officer had simply acted on the reported information and, despite the assessee having denied the transactions, had failed to consider her explanation and had, in a high-handed manner, added Rs 2.53 crore. The CIT(A) had rightly appreciated that the Assessing Officer is not expected to make an addition mathematically simply on the basis of information without verification of the facts, and the Bench found no merit or justification for the appeal (paras 7 and 8).
The Bench set out the basis of the addition and the CIT(A)'s findings, and then made its own appreciation. Two features drove it. The first was that the officer had acted on the reported information and nothing else: the reopening, the show-cause notice and the addition all rested on the same entries, and no primary document connecting the assessee to either transaction was ever obtained. The second was that the assessee's denial was not bare — she produced the one deed she had, and she identified in the reported data itself the names of two other purchasers against whose transactions her PAN had been entered, with the data flagged as not matched. Against that, the officer's course of adding the reported amount without verification was, in the Bench's word, high-handed. The Bench declined the Revenue's alternative plea for a remand, treating the concurrent appreciation of the reported data as sufficient and finding no justification for the appeal having been filed at all.
the AO is not expected to make an addition mathematically simply on the basis of information without verification of the facts
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Handle my notice → Ask a CA on WhatsAppNo. The Mumbai Bench dismissed the Revenue's appeal and upheld the deletion of a Rs 2.53 crore addition made on the strength of reported information alone, holding that the Assessing Officer is not expected to make an addition mathematically simply on the basis of information without verification of the facts. The decisive fact was that the names of the purchasers in the reported data were different persons and only the assessee's PAN had been tagged against them. This was decided by the ITAT (Om Prakash Kant, Accountant Member and Pawan Singh, Judicial Member) and bears on section 69, section 147, section 148, section 133(6), section 285BA, section 285BB of the Income Tax Act 1961. It is reported as ITA No. 4738/Mum/2026, assessment year 2015-16 (ITAT Mumbai Bench 'G'); instituted 23 April 2026, heard 29 July 2026, pronounced 20 August 2026. This is the fact pattern behind a very large share of AIS-driven additions: the reporting entity — here the Sub-Registrar — enters the right transaction against the wrong PAN, and the entire consideration is then attributed to whoever the PAN belongs to. Three things in this order are worth carrying into a reply. First, the deletion did not turn on the assessee proving a negative; it turned on the reported data itself, which named Mrs Smita Ganesh Hazare against one transaction and Sau. Neerja Bharat Sachdev against the other, and which was marked 'not matched'. Read the reported data before you argue about it — the answer is often on its face. Second, the CIT(A)'s formulation, which the Tribunal endorsed, is the sentence to use: the role of the Assessing Officer is not merely to add mathematically the amounts appearing in the Annual Information System to the returned income. Third, the CIT(A) faulted the officer for not exercising his power under s.133(6) to get a report from the Sub-Registrar or certified copies of the sale deeds; the officer had the tool to verify and did not use it, and that omission is what made the addition unsustainable. A practitioner should ask for that verification in writing during the assessment, so that the failure to make it is on the record. Note the limits. The Tribunal's own reasoning is short and is an affirmance of concurrent findings; the phrase used is that the Bench found no merit or justification for filing such an appeal. It is not authority that an AIS entry can never support an addition — it is authority that an unverified one cannot, where the assessee denies the transaction and points to a specific discrepancy. If it applies to you, the first step is this: Get the reported data itself, not just the notice, and read the reporting entity's own fields — the purchaser's name, the match status, the document number. Here the data named different purchasers and was flagged 'not matched'.
The assessee, an individual, had filed no return of income for the year. The Assessing Officer had information on the Network Management System on the Income Tax Business Application portal that she had purchased immovable property of more than Rs 30 lakh during the relevant financial year, the reported purchase being Rs 2.53 crore, and on that footing recorded reasons and reopened the assessment under section 147, issuing notice under section 148 on 15 April 2021. In response she filed a return on 30 November 2021 declaring income of Rs 27,66,080. The Assessing Officer recorded that she had failed to furnish the sale deed, purchase deed and source of income, and by show-cause notice dated 27 March 2023 confronted her with reported purchases aggregating Rs 3.82 crore, being Rs 2.53 crore plus Rs 1.29 crore. She replied with a copy of the purchase deed dated 30 March 2015 showing that she had purchased one property at Rustomjee Azziano, Thane for Rs 1.29 crore, together with the ICICI Bank loan sanction and Form 26AS, and stated that she had purchased no other property. The Assessing Officer added Rs 2.53 crore by assessment order dated 23 May 2023. Before the CIT(A) she explained the reported data itself: against the purchase of Rs 1.00 crore the name of the purchaser in the annual information return data was Mrs Smita Ganesh Hazare, and against the purchase of Rs 1.53 crore it was Sau. Neerja Bharat Sachdev, so that the names did not match hers although her PAN was mentioned against the purchaser transaction, and the data was marked 'not matched'. The CIT(A) deleted the addition, holding that the role of the Assessing Officer is not merely to add mathematically the amounts appearing in the Annual Information System to the returned income, that where the assessee specifically denied the transaction and pointed to the discrepancy the officer should have obtained information under section 133(6) such as a report from the Sub-Registrar or certified copies of the sale deeds, and that he had mechanically relied on computer-generated data and failed to link the assessee with the material on record. The Revenue appealed, its second ground being that the CIT(A) ought at least to have remanded the issue of name mismatch for examination and corroboration. The matter was decided on 2026-08-20 by the ITAT (Om Prakash Kant, Accountant Member and Pawan Singh, Judicial Member). On those facts the ITAT held as follows. The Revenue's appeal was dismissed. On its own independent appreciation of the facts the Bench found that the Assessing Officer had simply acted on the reported information and, despite the assessee having denied the transactions, had failed to consider her explanation and had, in a high-handed manner, added Rs 2.53 crore. The CIT(A) had rightly appreciated that the Assessing Officer is not expected to make an addition mathematically simply on the basis of information without verification of the facts, and the Bench found no merit or justification for the appeal (paras 7 and 8).
The Bench set out the basis of the addition and the CIT(A)'s findings, and then made its own appreciation. Two features drove it. The first was that the officer had acted on the reported information and nothing else: the reopening, the show-cause notice and the addition all rested on the same entries, and no primary document connecting the assessee to either transaction was ever obtained. The second was that the assessee's denial was not bare — she produced the one deed she had, and she identified in the reported data itself the names of two other purchasers against whose transactions her PAN had been entered, with the data flagged as not matched. Against that, the officer's course of adding the reported amount without verification was, in the Bench's word, high-handed. The Bench declined the Revenue's alternative plea for a remand, treating the concurrent appreciation of the reported data as sufficient and finding no justification for the appeal having been filed at all. In the words reproduced by the source cited on this page: "the AO is not expected to make an addition mathematically simply on the basis of information without verification of the facts"
It was decided by the ITAT on 2026-08-20 and is reported as ITA No. 4738/Mum/2026, assessment year 2015-16 (ITAT Mumbai Bench 'G'); instituted 23 April 2026, heard 29 July 2026, pronounced 20 August 2026. Binding on the AO and CIT(A) within the Tribunal's jurisdiction. Persuasive elsewhere. A Tribunal decision binds the assessing officer and the Commissioner (Appeals) within that Tribunal's jurisdiction, and is persuasive before other benches. It is not binding on a High Court, and a contrary co-ordinate bench decision will be argued against you, so check whether the point has been taken the other way before you build a reply around it. On section 69, section 147, section 148, section 133(6), section 285BA, section 285BB, the practical question is whether the facts of your own notice match the facts of this case closely enough for the same rule to apply.
It helps the taxpayer. The Revenue's appeal was dismissed. On its own independent appreciation of the facts the Bench found that the Assessing Officer had simply acted on the reported information and, despite the assessee having denied the transactions, had failed to consider her explanation and had, in a high-handed manner, added Rs 2.53 crore. The CIT(A) had rightly appreciated that the Assessing Officer is not expected to make an addition mathematically simply on the basis of information without verification of the facts, and the Bench found no merit or justification for the appeal (paras 7 and 8). It arises in Assessment & Scrutiny, Evidence & Burden of Proof, Reassessment & Reopening and Cash Credits & Unexplained Money matters, on section 69, section 147, section 148, section 133(6), section 285BA, section 285BB of the Income Tax Act 1961, and was decided by Om Prakash Kant, Accountant Member and Pawan Singh, Judicial Member. Before relying on it, read the source linked on this page and check whether it has since been distinguished, overruled or overtaken by an amendment to the Income Tax Act. In practice the steps that follow from it are these. Deny the transaction specifically and identify the discrepancy in writing during the assessment; a general denial is not what carried this case. Ask the Assessing Officer, on the record, to exercise s.133(6) against the reporting entity — the Sub-Registrar, the bank, the depository — and to obtain the primary document. The failure to do so was central to the deletion. Produce what your client did do: here the assessee produced the one sale deed she had, dated 30 March 2015, for Rs 1.29 crore, and the ICICI Bank sanction letter and Form 26AS. Where the addition is made under s.69 or s.69A, keep the two questions separate — whether the transaction is the assessee's at all, and whether the source is explained; this case was decided on the first and never reached the second. Take the correction to the reporting entity in parallel, since only the entity can amend what it filed under s.285BA.
Validity check could not be completed. Validity check could not be completed. The order is very recent (20 August 2026) and no later decision considering it was located; no citing-decisions search was run, the session's search budget having been exhausted on primary retrieval. It is a Tribunal order and therefore persuasive only, and it is an affirmance of concurrent findings on a specific and rather stark fact pattern — reported data naming two different purchasers against the assessee's PAN and flagged 'not matched'. It should not be cited for the broader proposition that no addition can ever rest on an AIS entry. No source could be cited for that finding. Checking whether an authority still stands matters as much as knowing what it held: a decision may be overruled on one point and survive on another, or the provision it interprets may have been amended since. Read the source and the editor's note on this page before relying on it in a reply to an Assessing Officer or in an appeal.
The order runs to eight numbered paragraphs and the pass reached the disposal at para 8; no long block quotation of another order appears within them. Three defects in the report a reader must know about. (1) Paragraph 1 reads 'This appeal by revenue is directed against the separate orders of ld. CIT(E) both dated 02.09.2025 for AY 2011', which is wrong three times over: the cause title and every other paragraph show a single CIT(A) order, the assessment year is 2015-16, and 'CIT(E)' is plainly a slip for CIT(A). Paragraph 1 appears to be recycled boilerplate. (2) The ground of appeal quoted in paragraph 1 describes the addition as made under section 69, while the assessee's submission recorded in paragraph 3 refers to an addition 'under section 68'; the assessment order itself was not before me and the section under which the addition was actually made cannot be resolved from this text. Section 69 is taken as the operative provision because that is what the Revenue's own ground says. (3) The order uses 'AIR information' and 'Annual Information System (AIS)' interchangeably; the transaction is of financial year 2014-15, when the reporting was under the annual information return regime, so 'AIR' is the accurate description of the data and 'AIS' is the CIT(A)'s shorthand. The figures recorded are: total addition Rs 2,53,10,700 (elsewhere Rs 2.53 crore); two reported purchases of Rs 1.00 crore and Rs 1.53 crore; a show-cause notice of 27 March 2023 confronting the assessee with purchases aggregating Rs 3.82 crore, being Rs 2.53 crore plus Rs 1.29 crore; the property actually purchased at Rustomjee Azziano, Thane for Rs 1.29 crore by deed dated 30 March 2015; notice under section 148 dated 15 April 2021; return filed 30 November 2021 declaring Rs 27,66,080; assessment order dated 23 May 2023. The quoted words were re-fetched through the docfragment view and returned identically. The quote is given as a mid-sentence stretch, without a leading capital, because in the order the words appear inside a longer sentence beginning 'We find that the learned CIT(A), while deleting the addition, has rightly appreciated that...'. This library shows the verification state of every entry openly. This entry has not yet been read in full by a chartered accountant. The summary reflects the sources listed on this page. Read the source before you rely on it in a reply to an Assessing Officer or in an appeal before the Commissioner (Appeals) or the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal.
The Revenue's appeal was dismissed. On its own independent appreciation of the facts the Bench found that the Assessing Officer had simply acted on the reported information and, despite the assessee having denied the transactions, had failed to consider her explanation and had, in a high-handed manner, added Rs 2.53 crore. The CIT(A) had rightly appreciated that the Assessing Officer is not expected to make an addition mathematically simply on the basis of information without verification of the facts, and the Bench found no merit or justification for the appeal (paras 7 and 8).
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