MANISH SHAH,SRIGANGANAGER vs. ITO, WARD-4 SRIGANGANAGAR, SRIGANGANAGAR

The ld. AR submitted that the ld. CIT(A) has dismissed the appeals of both the assessees stating that both these assessees have sought to settle the tax dispute under Direct Tax VSV Act, 2020 and hence sought to withdraw these appeals. Accordingly, he dismissed the appeals filed by these assessees.

The ld. AR submitted that these assessees have not opted to settle the issues under Direct Tax VSV Act, 2020 and they have not also filed any application. Further, these assesses have not filed any petition before Ld CIT(A) for withdrawing their appeals. He submitted that the Ld CIT(A) has passed the impugned orders on the basis of facts available in some other file. The Ld A.R also lamented that these assessees have reported this anamoly in various forums, but it did not yield any result. He submitted that both the assessees have been forced to incur expenses in filing the appeals before ITAT by way of filing fees, appeal preparation expense, professional fees etc., on account of inadvertent error committed by Ld

We heard the ld. DR and perused the record. As per the submissions made by ld. AR, we notice that both these assessees have faced untold difficulties and expenses in setting right the inadvertent error committed by Ld CIT(A) in dismissing appeals of these assessees. Appellate forums are meant to redress the grievances of the assessees and not harass them. Hence the higher authorities may take this matter seriously and may issue suitable instructions for avoiding such kind of errors, which has casted heavy burden on these assessees.

Since the ld. CIT(A) has dismissed the appeals of these assessees under wrong facts and since he has not adjudicated the appeals on merits, we set aside the orders passed by ld. CIT(A) in the hands of these assessees and restore all the issues to his file with the direction to adjudicate both the appeals on merits, after affording adequate opportunity being heard to the assessee.