Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

5. The Ld. AR submitted that the Hon'ble DRP, while passing the directions, held that the functional profile of the assessee with reference to back office support services was akin to a KPO which was patently incorrect. It was submitted that there was a vast difference in the functional profile of the assessee vis-a-vis a KPO and that the assessee's functional profile was akin to an Information Technology Enabled Services (ITeS) provider. Ld. AR referred to Rule 10TA(e) and Rule 10TA(g) of the Safe Harbour Rules for the definition of KPO and ITeS. Ld. AR submitted that AY 2012-13, 2011-12 the assessee was engaged in rendering back office support services which involved application support services, technology support services, hosting services and application and technical support in relation to the cloud service. It was also submitted that ITeS follows business process outsourcing services with the assistance or use of information technology and includes back office operations, call centre or contract centre service, data processing and data mining, insurance claim processing, legal data base, creation and maintenance of medical transcription excluding medical advice, translation service, payroll, remote maintenance, revenue accounting support centres, website services, data search integration and analysis, remote education excluding content development, clinical data base management service, clinical data base management service. It was also submitted that as per the definition of ITeS the same did not include any research and development services. Ld. AR further submitted that as far as KPOs are concerned, they provide business process outsourcing services, mainly with the assistance of information technology requiring application of knowledge and advanced analytical and technical skills. It was submitted that KPOs usually provide services in the nature of geographical AY 2012-13, 2011-12 information system, human resource services, engineering and design services, animation or content development and maintenance, business analytics, financial analytics and market research. It was submitted that the functions performed by the assessee were not at all related to the services covered by the definition of a KPO and the TPO did not consider the assessee as a KPO but the Hon'ble DRP, without analysing the functional profile of the assessee and without providing any cogent reasoning, held the assessee's functions as akin to a KPO. It was reiterated that the functions of the assessee were more akin to ITeS services provider and not a KPO.