1. The assessee offered income from house property from various properties in different years, however in some of the years, income from some of the properties were not shown or shown at Nil.
 

2. For Assessment Year (AY) 2013-14, the Assessing Officer (AO) held that notional Annual Lettable Value (AL V) should be added to the total income of the assessee, for the properties which remained vacant throughout the year under consideration according to provisions of section 23(1)(a) of the Act.
 

3. The AO computed notional ALV for A.Y.2013-14 at INR and after claiming deduction under section 24 (30% of NAV), the net income from house property of INR 63,37,765 was added to the total income of the assessee.
 

4. 4.Assessee filed appeal to CIT(A) against the addition made by the AO. The assessee submitted that the AO should not have added the notional ALV for various properties to the total income of the assessee since the properties were not capable for being let out during the relevant assessment year for reasons beyond the control of the assessee.
 

5. The CIT(A) accepted the assessee’ s arguments and deleted the additions made by the AO.
 

6. The department filed an appeal before ITAT against the order of CIT(A). The department submitted that the CIT(A) simply accepted the assessee’ s contention and judicial precedents placed before him and has not gone into the details of each of the individual properties and has not ascertained separately as to the reasons why the same were lying vacant. The department was of the view that provisions of section 23(1)(a) of the Act were attracted, and notional annual lettable value (ALV) was required to be added to the total income of the assessee.
 

7. Assessee submitted that 12 unsold properties were retained and the same could not be rented out for the reasons beyond the control of the assessee, hence, the same could not be let out. Assessee also drew attention to copies of advertisements given by the assessee to prove that despite its efforts to lease out property, the same could not be done during the assessment year.

8. Relying on the several earlier decisions ITAT held that the provisions of section 23(1)(a) of the Act (addition of notional ALV) cannot be applied in case the properties have been let out in some earlier year, however the same were lying vacant for the entire year, despite efforts made by the assessee.
 

9. The words used in section 23(1)(c) of the Act are ‘the property is let out and was vacant during the whole……of the year.’ The reasonable interpretation of section 23(1)(c) of the Act would be that if the property has been let out in any of the previous years, but the same could not be let out despite the best efforts by the assessee, the assessee would be entitled to avail the benefits of section 23(1)(c) of the Act.
 

10. Accordingly, appeal filed by the department was dismissed.