Sec 195

First check the provisions of the DTAA with the country where you sent the fees. If it is a technical fee pursuant to an agreement of royalty, there are separate provisions in the DTAA to handle such payments.

For the Income Tax Act, for technical fees if the agreement is made after 1/6/2005 and approved by Central Government (even deemed approved under certain circumstances) then Rate in force whether company or non company is 10% with PAN or 20% without PAN. In other cases it is 30% for payments to non company and 40% + surcharge for payments to other than domestic companies. Therefore see if the technical fee you are paying qualifies to be approved under the Industrial Policy in Force. Then you do not need a separate approval. There is a recent judgement in ITAT for this. If DTAA allows any rate below 20% for company or non company, you can use the rate as per DTAA or 20% if there is no PAN. You can apply rates that is most beneficial to the payee.  The 30% and 40% rates hold good even if there is No PAN.