What the courts have decided on section Benami s.26(3), in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.
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Manik Seth v Initiating Officer, BPU, Ludhiana
High CourtHelps departmentNo later treatment found
The Appellate Tribunal allowed my benami appeal years ago. After the Ganpati Dealcom recall it has reopened the matter on the Department's review. Can it do that?
On this judgment, yes, where the Tribunal's own earlier order reserved that liberty. The Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed writ petitions against the Appellate Tribunal's order granting review and restoring the appeals. It held that s.40 of the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act leaves the Tribunal free to regulate its own procedure and expressly includes the power of review, and that the petitioners had acquiesced in an earlier order which itself gave the Department liberty to apply for review if the Supreme Court reviewed Ganpati Dealcom.
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Adjudicating Authority v Anuttam Academic Institutions
High CourtHelps departmentNo later treatment found
The adjudication order is dated inside the one-year period in s.26(7), but the certified copy reached me weeks after it expired. Is the order time-barred?
No. The Madras High Court held that the one-year period in s.26(7) governs when the Adjudicating Authority must make its order, and that the order is made on the date it is passed and entered in the Authority's registers, not on the date a certified copy is prepared or despatched. Delay in preparing and communicating certified copies is a procedural lapse which does not postpone the date of making the order.
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Shrenik Shah v Initiating Officer, DCIT BPU, Ahmedabad
ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
The Adjudicating Authority has dropped my client as beneficial owner and recast him as an abettor, but kept the attachment on his own property. Can it?
No. The Appellate Tribunal held that the Act allows attachment of benami property in the hands of the benamidar or the beneficial owner, and does not allow property to be attached merely because it is in the hands of an abettor without a finding that the property itself is benami. Once the Adjudicating Authority accepted that the appellant was an abettor and that someone else was the beneficial owner, the continued attachment of his personal assets could not stand and the appeal was allowed.
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Ranjana Roy v Initiating Officer, Kolkata
ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
Jewellery found in my client's house during a search has been attached as benami. The alleged owner declared it under PMGKY. Does the attachment survive?
It did not. The Appellate Tribunal had the jewellery verified against the jeweller's own hallmarking and sales records, and only four of sixty-six packets could be traced to the showroom the Department relied on. The person said to be the beneficial owner had already declared the jewellery bought from that showroom under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana 2016 and the Department had accepted the declaration. On that material the Tribunal held the jewellery was not held as benami, set aside the adjudication order and allowed the appeal.
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Ace Infracity Developers v Initiating Officer, BPU-1, Mumbai
ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
The benami show-cause notice came from an Initiating Officer in a city where neither the property nor my client sits. Does that matter?
It is fatal to the notice. The Appellate Tribunal held that an Initiating Officer may act only where one of the three limbs — the benami transaction or property, the benamidar, or the beneficial owner — falls within the territorial jurisdiction assigned to him by the CBDT's notification S.O. 1621(E) dated 18 May 2017. The Mumbai Initiating Officer had none of them, so the notice and everything built on it went, and the adjudication order was set aside without any finding on the merits.
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.
