Sec. 55A of Income Tax Act, 1961— Capital gain— Direction given to Assessing officer to take the fair market value of the property as on 01.04.1981 for the purpose of computation of long term capital gain instead of the value adopted by qualified registered valuer.

Facts: Solitary grievance of the assessee has been confined to the issue of determination of fair market value of immovable property ( for the purpose of computation of long term capital gain) as on 01.04.1981 at Rs. 5,82,083/- by the District Valuation Officer, Income Tax Department as against the fair market value at Rs. 18,51,000/- determined by the qualified registered valuer of the assessee.

Held, that amended provisions of section 55A(a) is applicable from 01.07.2012, that is, (previous year 01.07.2012 to 31.03.2013) for assessment year 2013-14 onwards. Whereas the assessee sold the property on 21.07.2011, therefore amended provisions of section 55A(a) does not apply to the assessee under consideration. In assessee's case the assessment year is A.Y. 2012-13 whereas amended provisions of section 55A(a) are applicable from A.Y. 2013-14. Hence, pre-amended section 55A(a) is applicable to the assessee wherein the terminology used is “is less than its fair market value” . We note that assessee's qualified Registered Valuer of Income Tax had valued the property at fair market value on 01.04.1981 at Rs. 18,51,000/- which is not less than the fair market value done by the District Valuation Officer of Income Tax Department at Rs. 5,82,083/-. Based on the position in law as explained , we direct the assessing officer to take the fair market value of the property as on 01.04.1981 at Rs. 18,51,000/- for the purpose of computation of long term capital gain. - SWAMI SATYANANDA RAMKRISHNA MISSION SEVASRAM V/s ITO - [2020] 26 ITCD Online 082 (ITAT-KOLKATA)