Two companies, Green Gene Bio and Recycling Solutions, took the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to court after it prematurely foreclosed a tender through which they had won a contract.
The tender called for bids to set up processing facilities for 1,000 tonnes of municipal waste per day. The two companies said they would not be able to fulfil a condition contained in an addendum, which required them to install GPS trackers on the trucks carrying waste.
The corporation scrapped the tender and issued a fresh one. Green Gene and Recycling Solutions filed a writ of mandamus, seeking to halt the second tender.
They lost. Chief Justice Subramonium Prasad said: “this court does not sit as a court of appeal, and simply reviews the decision made by experts. Even then, the scope of judicial review is fairly narrow, and this court cannot tweak the terms of the tendering process set by an expert.”
Excess stock is income
The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal has held that any excess stock computed by the tax department must be treated as business income.
Nandini Sharma was engaged in furniture trading and had filed a return of income.
A survey was conducted by income tax officials and stock of ₹54,94,959 was found, as against the stock of ₹48,68,459 recorded in the books of account.
Thus, excess stock of ₹6,26,500 was found.
The authorities treated this as business income, under Section 69 of the Income Tax Act, which deals with unexplained income. In that case, the applicable tax rate is 60 per cent, as per Section 115BBE of the Act.
The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal allowed the appeal of Sharma.
It ruled that since the stock “was not separately and clearly identifiable but was a part of mixed lots of stock found on the premises”, it should be treated as business income only.
The tribunal directed the assessing officer to compute the surrendered income under normal provisions, as applicable to the business income of the assessee.