Cellular roaming and interconnect usage charges - Taxability as royalty - India - UK DTAA - Article 13(3).

Facts:

Assessee a UK entity was providing roaming services to Vodafone subscribers of India in the UK for which payments were made by Vodafone India. It was the case of the revenue that these were taxable under the Income tax act, 1961 post facto insertions of explanation 5/6 to section 9(1)(vi) and thus the same was also taxable under Indo-UK DTAA Article 13(3) as royalty. On appeal by the assessee aggrieved by the AO/DRP order -

Held in favour of the assessee that interconnect usage fee or roaming charges were not taxable as royalty as per the Indo-UK DTAA. Amendments in the domestic tax law cannot be read into DTAA without an explicit treaty negotiations/amendments.

Applied: 

Telefonica Depreciation Espana SA v. CIT [ITA No. 2657/Bang/2019, 180/Bang/2022 & 817/Bang/2022, dt. 10-8-2023]

Bharti Airtel Ltd. v. ITO (2016) 178 TTJ 708 (Del-Trib) : 2016 TaxPub(DT) 1376 (Del-Trib)

Interroute Communications Limited v. DDIT (2016) 68 taxmann.com 160 (Mum-Trib) : 2016 TaxPub(DT) 1841 (Mum-Trib) 

WNS North America Inc. [ITA No. 8621/Mum/2010, dt. 14-12-2012] : 2013 TaxPub(DT) 0658 (Mum-Trib)

CIT v. Raliance Infocomm Ltd. [ITA No. 1395 of 2016]

Engineering Analysis Centre of Excellence (P) Ltd. v. CIT reported in (2021) 432 ITR 471 (SC) : 2021 TaxPub(DT) 1208 (SC)

Case: Telefonica UK Ltd. v. Dy. CIT 2023 TaxPub(DT) 6044 (Mum-Trib)