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Showing contexts for: Software Source code in Dcit(It)-3(2)(2), Mumbai vs Murex Southeast Asia Private Limited, ... on 30 June, 2025Matching Fragments
to non-resident suppliers, as consideration for use of the computer software is not in the nature of Royalty for use of copyright in the computer software and does not give rise to any income taxable in India in the hands of such non- resident recipient under the Tax Treaty (including the India-Singapore Tax Treaty, as applicable in the present case). It has been claimed that the aforesaid ruling is squarely applicable to the facts of the Appellant, since in the present case also, the Appellant has earned income from sub-licensing standardized / 'shrink wrapped software to Indian customers only for their internal use. The appellant has claimed that the sub-licensee / Indian customers are not provided with source code but an installable version of the software for them to deploy, they are also refrained from modifying, re-selling, reverse engineering. modifying, disassembling, decompiling, decoding etc, and commercially exploiting the software in any way. Thus, it has been claimed that the Appellant has not transferred any rights in copyright being software to the sub-licensees / Indian customers and the income earned is not in the nature of Royalty as per the beneficial provisions of India-Singapore Tax Treaty. To substantiate this claim, the Appellant has submitted a brief summary (as quoted above) of the relevant clauses of sample agreement of Murex with Indian customer and correlation with End User License Agreement ('EULA') as per SC ruling in case of Engineering Analysis (supra), and claimed that as per this summary, the clauses as mentioned in the sample agreement submitted by the Appellant before the AO contain the relevant clauses appearing in the EULA analyzed by the Hon. SC. Thus, it has been claimed that the case of the Appellant is squarely covered by the aforesaid ruling. Further, the appellant has submitted that in the subsequent assessment years AY 2018-19, the AO has not made any additions on this issue based on analysis of identical agreements and accepting the applicability of Hon'ble SC's ruling in the case of Engineering Analysis Centre of Excellence (P.) Ltd. [2021] 125 taxmann.com 42 (SC). In view of the above, the appellant has submitted that the matter was always debatable and is now favourably well-settled as per the principles laid by the Hon. SC in the case of Engineering Analysis (supra), and thus, income earned by it from sub-licensing of software of Rs.4,16,68,852/- is actually not in the nature of Royalty, but business income not taxable in absence of PE in India as per Article 5 read with Article 7 of the India-Singapore Tax Treaty. Thus, the Appellant has submitted that since the quantum issue is already settled in favour of the Company by the Hon'ble Supreme Court ruling (even though Company had accepted additions only to buy peace and avoid protracted litigation), the question of penalty in the present case should not arise. Hence, the penalty levied by the AO is erroneous and bad in law.