Section 103 (Act of 2025) — the law in short
What the courts have decided on section 103 (Act of 2025), in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.
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CIT v P.K. Noorjahan
Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
The officer says my explanation for an investment is unsatisfactory, so the money must be my income. Is he obliged to make the addition once he disbelieves me?
No. Section 69 says the value of an unexplained investment may be deemed to be the income of the assessee, and the Supreme Court held that the word is deliberate. The clause in the Bill used 'shall'; on the recommendation of the Select Committee it was changed to 'may'. Parliament therefore conferred a discretion on the Income-tax Officer, and he is not obliged to treat an unexplained investment as income in every case where the explanation is found unsatisfactory. Whether it should be treated as income has to be considered in the light of the facts of each case. On these facts the Tribunal had found that the assessee, a woman of about twenty during the first of the two years, could not be credited with having earned the amounts at all; the discretion had not been properly exercised, the High Court agreed, and the department's appeals were dismissed.
Listed strongest first: Supreme Court, then High Court, then Tribunal, then CBDT. Nothing here has yet been read in full by a chartered accountant — open an entry to see where it came from.
