Direct Tax Litigation · Ahmedabad
The assessment is over.
The argument begins.
Sunil Maloo & Co. was founded in 2019 in Ahmedabad by CA Sunil Maloo. The firm was set up to do a narrower thing than a general practice does — to take direct tax matters that are contested, and to carry them properly: search and seizure assessments, on-money and real estate additions, reassessment, penalty, and the appellate record that has to carry them through the CIT(A) and the Tribunal.
The firm
Litigation is a discipline, not an overflow.
In most practices, litigation is what happens when compliance work goes wrong. It is handled by the same people, in the time left over, with the file as it happens to exist. That is not a criticism of those practices — it is simply a different business.
This firm is organised the other way round. Contested matters are the work, not the consequence of the work. That changes what gets done: the record is built rather than assembled, jurisdictional points are taken before merits rather than after, quantum is reconciled rather than argued in the abstract, and drafting is treated as the principal activity it actually is.
It also changes when the thinking happens. A contested matter is usually determined by four or five decisions taken long before a hearing — what the order actually rests on, whether the jurisdictional point is ripe, whether to meet the number or the basis it was built from, and what is worth conceding to hold the ground that matters. Those decisions are the practice. Everything after them is execution, and execution is the part that can be delegated.
The practice concentrates on direct tax — search and seizure assessments, real estate and on-money disputes, reassessment, penalty, and the appellate work that follows. Advisory engagements are taken where they bear on a dispute: one that exists, one that is coming, or one a client is trying to avoid. The same judgment applies on either side of the line; a structure is only as good as the assessment it will one day have to survive.
At a glance
- Founded 2019
- Ahmedabad, Gujarat
- Direct tax litigation and advisory only
- Appearances before the CIT(A) and the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal
- Instructed both directly and on referral from other professionals
Founder
CA Sunil Maloo
Sunil Maloo is a chartered accountant — a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India since 2011 (membership no. 138564), and a rank-holder in the Institute’s PCC examination, having secured All India Rank 33. He also holds a law degree from Sir L. A. Shah Law College, Ahmedabad, and founded Sunil Maloo & Co. in 2019.
Since 2010 his work has been exclusively in direct tax — litigation and advisory, and nothing else. His practice concentrates on search and seizure assessments, real estate and construction tax matters, appeals before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, the faceless assessment and appeal regime, and advisory on high-end, complex issues. He appears before the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) and the Tribunal, and is instructed by other chartered accountants and advocates on matters within that field.
His approach treats a direct tax matter as a problem of strategy: reading the facts and circumstances together with the law, through the lens of how a tribunal or court actually reasons. The firm’s work is built on that method — positioning a litigation or an advisory question so that the argument follows from the record rather than around it.
- Chartered Accountant, ICAI — membership no. 138564, since 2011
- All India Rank 33, CA PCC examination
- LL.B., Sir L. A. Shah Law College, Ahmedabad
- In direct tax litigation and advisory since 2010
A direct tax matter is a problem of strategy — the facts and the law read together, the way the bench will read them.
CA Sunil MalooThe work
Three areas, and the appeals that follow them.
Professionals bring us into a file when the matter turns evidentiary rather than arithmetical — when the addition rests on a seized document, a statement recorded under oath, or an estimate the Assessing Officer has not troubled to reconcile. We work alongside the existing advisor, not around them.
Sections 132 · 153A · 153C
Search & Seizure Assessments
Post-search assessments turn on what the seized material actually proves. Loose papers and dumb documents, statements recorded under section 132(4) and their retraction, the right to cross-examination, and the jurisdictional foundation of a section 153C satisfaction note.
The search practiceDevelopers · Builders · Land
Real Estate Tax Litigation
On-money additions, rejection of books under section 145(3), percentage-of-completion disputes, section 43CA and 56(2)(x) valuation differences, unsecured loans and capital introduction, and the quantum reconciliation that follows a blanket estimate.
Real estate disputesCIT(A) · ITAT · Faceless
Appellate Practice
Grounds drafted to be argued, not merely filed. Statements of fact, applications for admission of additional grounds under section 250(5), written submissions built on a document-anchored record, and paper books assembled so the bench can find what matters.
Appellate workHow a matter runs
The record decides the appeal.
An appellate authority cannot act on an argument that has no foundation in the file. Most of the work in a tax dispute is therefore not advocacy — it is building a record that makes the argument unavoidable.
An addition sustained on an estimate is only as strong as the material the estimate was drawn from.
Practice noteRead the order against the record
The assessment order, the seized material it relies on, the statements, the show-cause and the reply are read together. What the order asserts and what the record actually supports are rarely the same document.
Separate the jurisdictional from the merits
Whether the assessment could lawfully be made at all — satisfaction, approval, limitation, service, the existence of incriminating material — is a distinct enquiry from whether the addition is right. Both are taken, in that order.
Reconcile the quantum, line by line
A blanket estimate is met with a reconciliation: what is already recorded in the books, what is duplicated across years, what pertains to another entity, and what survives. A number the Department cannot break is worth more than an argument it can.
Draft to be argued
Grounds, statement of facts and written submissions are drafted as a single structure, each ground tied to a contention and each contention anchored to an enclosure. Where a ground was missed at filing, it is brought in properly under section 250(5) rather than argued without foundation.
How we work
Four commitments.
A view, early
You are told what a matter is worth at the outset, including when the honest answer is that a ground is weak or an appeal is not worth pursuing. An early accurate view is more valuable than a late optimistic one.
The file, before the argument
Time goes into the record first — what is on it, what is missing, and what must be placed on it now so that it can be relied on later. Arguments are built on documents, not around them.
Alongside your existing advisor
Where a matter comes on referral, the existing professional stays in it. The brief is the dispute, not the relationship, and nothing is done that cuts across it.
Written to be read by the bench
Submissions are drafted for the person who has to decide — structured, indexed, and short of rhetoric. If the point cannot be found, it has not been made.
If a notice has already reached you
Start with what is in your hand.
Most of what determines the outcome of a tax dispute happens early — in what is said in reply, what is placed on record, and what is allowed to go unchallenged. Find the provision on your notice below.
Time limits do not wait for a decision.
Appeals, objections and replies each run on their own clock, and several of them are measured in days rather than months. If a limitation date is approaching, say so when you write — it changes the order in which things need to be done.
Insights
Published analysis.
Reading of statute, judgments and Finance Act amendments as they land — written for practitioners, in long form and in slides.
Company to LLP: what the company is charged on when the clause fails
Part 2 of four. The defence that has actually succeeded on a non-compliant company to limited liability partnership conversion attacks the computation rather than the charge: where the undertaking vests at book value, book value is the full value of consideration for section 48, and where that figure equals cost the difference is nil. This Part sets out that reasoning and the step in it where the Department should attack, the three deeming provisions that defeat the nil result and the answer to them that no Bench has heard, a worked example with figures, the Revenue's unlitigated answers in section 50D and section 56(2)(x), the profit on stock in trade, self-generated goodwill, and what the limited liability partnership starts with.
Company to LLP: losses, MAT credit, recovery and the 2025 Act
Part 4 of four. The quantifiable costs of converting a private company into a limited liability partnership are mostly not capital gains: accumulated business loss does not travel because section 72A(6A) is conditioned on compliance and section 78(2) bars it independently, the minimum alternate tax credit lapses whether or not the conditions are met, and the written down value does not carry across. This Part takes those, the section 80-IA deduction that does survive and what it costs in alternate minimum tax, and how the demand arrives: the year of charge and limitation under the substituted section 149, the company's last return, a notice to a company that has ceased to exist, recovery, the successor's own first year, penalty under sections 270A and 270AA, and the counterparts in the Income-tax Act, 2025.
Company to LLP: the shareholder's capital gain and the reserves
Part 3 of four. Section 47(xiiib) exempts the shareholder's transfer of his shares as well as the company's transfer of its assets, and when the clause fails the shareholder is a transferor in his own right, charged on the extinguishment of a shareholding that usually cost a nominal amount years ago. This Part takes that charge and the conditions that can be broken after a conversion that did qualify: what actually breaches clause (d) and clause (f), the character of the shareholder's gain, the reliefs available and unavailable, what counts as paying out accumulated profits, sections 9B and 45(4) on a later withdrawal, whether the reserves could be a dividend, and the sections 68 and 69 exposure the successor's first balance sheet invites.
Brief us
Bring us the order and the record. We will tell you what it is worth.
An initial reading tells you where the matter stands, which grounds are worth taking, and what the record still needs. Send the assessment order and the notice, and we will respond with a view.