Benami s.26(6)

Benami s.26(6) — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section Benami s.26(6), in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• 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.
• Ambica Bullion v DCIT (BPU-1), Mumbai ITATCuts both waysNo later treatment found
  The benami attachment on my client's bank accounts rests on an investigation that never traced the people it names. Will the Tribunal simply release it?
  Not necessarily. Where both sides have left holes — the Initiating Officer having failed to trace the person said to control the benamidar companies or to establish how they were incorporated and operated, and the appellant having failed to produce a stock register or the underlying sale invoices — the Appellate Tribunal remanded the matter for re-investigation instead of deciding it, directed that it be completed preferably within six months, ordered status quo and directed the banks to convert the attached balances into fixed deposits in the meantime.
• Kavita Infrastructure Pvt Ltd v Initiating Officer ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  I bought a property from a company that is now said to have held it benami, and the attachment came without any notice to me. Can I get it lifted?
  Yes, on this order. The Appellate Tribunal set aside the provisional attachment and allowed the appeal, holding that the Initiating Officer must satisfy himself of four matters before attaching under s.24(3), that a purchaser whose sale deed is on record is entitled to notice under s.24(1), and that the initial burden of showing that the purchase was not bona fide lies on the Initiating Officer and must be discharged by cogent evidence.

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.