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7. Giving thoughtful consideration to the matter on record it comes up that in assessee's own case for the assessment year 2010-11 to 2016-17 a co- ordinate Bench, on which one of us 'the Judicial Member', was in quorum had considered the issue giving rise to ground no. 1 to 5 and had observed in para 13 to 30 as under :

"13. We have given thoughtful consideration to the contentions of the ld. DR and have duly considered the written submissions. In our understanding of the facts, the assessee provides web-based online access to its customer's data hosted on servers located in data centers maintained by the assessee outside India. The assessee does not have any data centers in India and hence it cannot be considered to have a fixed place of business in India. The assessee neither has a place of management in India nor has any equipment or personnel in India. This fact has also been accepted by the ld. CIT(A) in his order. Therefore, in the absence of granting any control over the equipment belonging to the assessee to its customers, the allegation of the AO that the amount so received will constitute 'Royalty' is not acceptable.

22. In light of the aforesaid discussion, we will now revert to the master subscription agreement wherein "Customer Data" has been defined as:

"all electronic data or information submitted by the customer to the service"

23. Users Means:

"individuals who are authorized by Customer to use the Service, for whom subscriptions to the Service have been purchased, and who have been supplied user identifications and passwords by Customer (or by SFDC at Customer's request). Users may include but are not limited to employees, consultants, contractors and agents of Customer or its Affiliates."
(iv) access the Service in order to (A) build a competitive product or service, or (B) copy any, features, functions or graphics of the service common.

26. Customer Data means:

"As between SFDC and Customer, Customer exclusively owns all rights, title and interest in and to all Customer Data. Customer Data is deemed Confidential Information under this Agreement. SFDC shall not access Customer's User accounts, including Customer Data, except to respond to service or technical problems or at Customer's request."

27. Return of customer data means:

"Upon request by Customer made within 30 days after the effective date of termination, SFDC will make available to Customer for download a file of Customer Data in comma separated value (.csv) format along with attachments in their native format. After such 30-day period, SFDC shall have no obligation to maintain or provide any Customer Data and shall thereafter, unless legally prohibited, delete all Customer Data in its systems or otherwise in its possession or under its control."