Sec. 143(3) of Income Tax Act, 1961—Assessment— When the department has set down a standard for itself, the department is bound by that standard and cannot act with discrimination.

Facts:Order passed by AO and further order passed by CIT (A) are bad in law in as much as admitted from para 3 of assessment order that case was primarily selected for limited scrutiny only on limited issue of Long term capital gains (LTCG) on which aspect as per CIT-A order there remains no existing addition and conversion of limited scrutiny to complete scrutiny on mere suspicion only and for verification only, on basis of invalid approval of PCIT-3, entire addition on a/c disallowance, of short term capital loss of Rs. 420,94,764 & Rs. 8,41,895 as alleged unexplained commission expense is not as per CBDT instructions (refer instruction no 19&20/2015 of29/12/2015) on the subject and ergo ultra vires to provisions of the Act.

Held, that when the department has set down a standard for itself, the department is bound by that standard and cannot act with discrimination. In case, it does that, the act of department is bound to be struck down under Article 14 of the Constitution. Therefore, on an overall view of the factual matrix as well as settled judicial position, we are of the considered opinion that the instant conversion of the case from limited scrutiny to complete scrutiny cannot be upheld as the same is found to be in total violation of CBDT Instructions No.5/2016. Accordingly, it is our considered opinion that the entire assessment proceedings do not have any feet to stand on. Therefore, we hold the assessment order to be nullity and we quash the same. Since, we have quashed the assessment order as being nullity, the other grounds raised by the assessee became academic in nature and are not being addressed to. - DEV MILK FOODS PVT. LTD. V/s ADDI. CIT - [2020] 81 ITR (TRIB) 178 (ITAT-DELHI)