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Showing contexts for: structural repairs in Uhde India P.Ltd, Mumbai vs Addl Cit 10(3), Mumbai on 16 March, 2021Matching Fragments
17. We have heard the rival submissions and perused the relevant materials on record. The reasons for our decisions are given below.
We begin with the case laws relied on by the Ld. counsel. In Talathi & Panthaky Associated (P.) Ltd. (supra), the assessee-company was a tenant in a building occupying 5000 sq. ft. The said building was declared by the Municipal Corporation to be unsafe for occupation and an eviction notice was served on the occupants. Thereafter, a partition suit was preferred by the co- owners of the building. A court receiver was appointed and the assessee being a tenant in the building continued to pay rent to the receiver. In that suit, consent terms were entered into under which a developer was to repair and re-construct the building at his costs, and, therefore, to handover certain portion (area) to the co-owners. The consent terms contemplated that either a co-operative society, a limited company or a condominium comprising of the tenants, occupants and co-owners shall be formed. Under the terms, tenancy of the assessee was confirmed; and the assessee assumed an obligation to contribute a sum of Rs.1.50 crores for the work of repair and restoration of the structure ; and it further provided that there would be no increase in the ITA No 3775 & 4214/Mum/2016 16 UHDE India Pvt. Ltd.
In our opinion the test involved by Chagla C.J. in New shorrock Spinning & Manufacturing Company Limited is the most appropriate one having regard to the context in which the said expression occurs. It has also been followed by a majority of the High Courts in India. We respectfully accept and adopt the test.
Applying he aforesaid test, if we look at the facts of this case, it will be evident that what the assessee did was not mere repairs but a total renovation of the theatre. New machinery, new furniture, new sanitary fittings and new electrical wiring were installed besides extensively repairing the structure of the building. By no stretch of ITA No 3775 & 4214/Mum/2016 22 UHDE India Pvt. Ltd.
18.1 In Oxford University Press (supra), the assessee is a company carrying on business of publishers and book sellers, importing and selling books published by the Oxford University. The assessment year is 1963-64. During the accounting period relevant to the assessment year the assessee incurred an expenditure of Rs.59,000 in the form of payment made to M/s. John Fleming & Co. for guniting work carried on in its building known as "Oxford House" and also a sum of Rs.3,680 as fees paid to the architects in connection with guniting work undertaken on the advice of the architects. The assessee claimed both the items as expenditure incurred for repairs to their building. The Income-tax Officer observed that the repairs in question could not be called "current repairs" but that the assessee had undertaken major structural repairs which had the effect of prolonging the life of the building for a least 15 years and as the repairs resulted in extension of the period of the serviceableness of the asset and in the creation of an enduring benefit, the expenditure was a capital expenditure. The Hon'ble Bombay High Court held that :
expenditure incurred for doing the guinting work. As a result of guniting work done the assessee had not changed the nature of the asset, viz., the building as a whole, and the same in no way increased the accommodation or earning capacity of the building; in that sense no new advantage of enduring benefit had been brought into existence. The repairs also could not be regarded as heavy structural repairs, for, according to the assessee's architects, what could not be achieved by the ordinary method of plastering was achieved by a sophisticated method of process of guniting. In this view of the matter, it seemed very clear that the expenditure incurred for guniting work done as also the expenditure being the architects' fees paid in connection therewith would have to be regarded as expenditure of a revenue nature.