ITAT Deletes Addition Based Solely on Uncorroborated WhatsApp Message

Case Details: Dhaval Patel vs. ACIT [2026] 187 taxmann.com 292 (Ahmedabad - Trib.)

Judiciary and Counsel Details

DR BRR Kumar, Vice President & T. R. Senthil Kumar, Judicial Member
Vijay Mehta, A.R. for the Appellant.
Alpesh Parmar, CIT-DR & Nitin Kulkarni, Sr DR for the Respondent.

Facts of the Case

Pursuant to a search action, the AO noticed an outgoing WhatsApp message recovered from the assessee’s mobile phone stating, “50 lacks given to Manan yesterday”. Since no corresponding transaction of Rs. 50 lakh was found in the ledger account furnished by the assessee, the AO presumed that the assessee had made an unaccounted cash payment to Shri Manan K. Trivedi and added the amount to the assessee’s income.

The CIT(A) upheld the addition, holding that the WhatsApp message clearly indicated payment of Rs. 50 lakh, and that the assessee had failed to establish that the transaction had been carried out through banking channels.

The matter reached the Tribunal.

ITAT Held

The assessee had consistently maintained that the message pertained to cheque transactions and had furnished the ledger account, PAN and address details of Shri Manan K. Trivedi. However, despite the availability of such details, the AO neither conducted any independent enquiry nor recorded the statement of the recipient.

Further, no evidence in the form of cash withdrawals, diary entries, acknowledgements or any corresponding material from the recipient’s side was brought on record to establish that cash had actually changed hands.

The Tribunal held that an isolated WhatsApp message, without any corroborative material, could at best give rise to suspicion requiring further investigation but could not constitute conclusive evidence of undisclosed income.

Accordingly, in the absence of any material establishing actual cash payment, the addition of Rs. 50 lakh was deleted.