In the context of payment to retainer/consultants employed by the hospital to work from7.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. every day the dispute arose between application of section 192 or 194J. Whereas the AO held a view that that the income of the doctors was salary while the hospital treated them as professional fees.
The High Court directed the AO an easy way out to make a judgement on section applicable and thus suggested to him to reconsider the matter having noticed that the assessment have been done in the hands of the consultant doctors treating their income as professional income received from this assessee. Another factor which weighed importance has been that the consultants were being paid incentive based on elective surgeries performed by them which therefore has a direct nexus to the number of surgeries/emergency cases/extended time after duty hours/admission/investigation, etc.