SANDEEP NARAYAN RATHI,THANE vs. DCIT, CIRCLE-3, THANE

PDF · subscribers
ITA 1824/MUM/2023Status: DisposedITAT Mumbai30 October 2023AY 2014-154 pages
AI SummaryRemanded

What did the Tribunal hold?

The Tribunal found that the Commissioner failed to decide the appeal properly due to the assessee's lack of response and a misunderstanding of the appeal's subject matter. Therefore, the case was remanded back to the Commissioner for a fresh decision.

What were the facts?

The Assessing Officer disallowed Rs. 14,41,398/- under Section 68. The assessee appealed to the Commissioner, but due to non-appearance and non-filing of documents, the appeal was decided ex-parte. The Commissioner also mistakenly referred to an appeal against a penalty order under Section 271(1)(c) instead of the assessment order under Section 143(3).

What were the issues?

Whether the Commissioner erred in deciding the appeal ex-parte without a proper adjudication on merits, and whether the appeal was correctly identified as being against an assessment order rather than a penalty order.

Which sections of the Income-tax Act were involved?

Section 68,Section 143(3),Section 271(1)(c),Section 250

AI-generated summary — verify with the full judgment below

Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, “G” BENCH, MUMBAI

Before: SHRI B R BASKARAN, AM & SHRI N. K. CHOUDHRY, JM

For Appellant: Shri Shashank A. Mehta, CA, Shri Paresh Deshpande, Sr
For Respondent: Shri Paresh Deshpande, Sr
Hearing: 25.10.2023Pronounced: 30.10.2023

The Assessee/Appellant herein has preferred this appeal against the order dated 22.03.2023 impugned herein passed by National Faceless Appeal Centre (NFAC), Delhi /Ld. Commissioner of Sandeep Narayan Rathi Income Tax (Appeals)-2, Thane {in short ‘Ld. Commissioner’} under section 250 of the Income Tax Act 1961 (in short ‘the Act’).

2.

In the instant case, the assessment order dated 29.12.2016 was passed by the Assessing Officer (AO) under section 143(3) of the Act whereby the amount of Rs. 14,41,398/- was disallowed under section 68 of the Act and added back in the income of the Assessee. The Assessee challenged the said assessment order by filing first appeal on 01.02.2017 before the Ld. Commissioner, which was taken into consideration and various notices such as on dated 29.02.2020, 25.12.2020, 30.09.2022 and 21.02.2023 were issued to the Assessee, however, the Assessee neither appeared nor filed any document except statements of fact along with Form-35, therefore, in the constrained circumstances, the Ld. Commissioner decided the appeal as ex-parte in limine but not on merit.

3.

The Assessee before us claimed that the Assessee has preferred first appeal before the Ld. Commissioner on 03.01.2017 but it is a fact that the same was taken for hearing only in the Month of February 2020 and thereafter in December 2020, 31.09.2022 and on 21.02.2023. The Ld. Commissioner in para-5.2 of the impugned also misunderstood that the appeal has been preferred against the order levying the penalty under section 271(1)(c) of the Act, whereas it is a fact as also appeared in para-1 of the impugned order that the order under challenge before the Ld. Commissioner was under section 143(3) of the Act but not under section 271(1)(c) of the Act.

3.1 Considering the peculiar facts and circumstances as the Ld. Commissioner failed to decide the appeal in proper manner in the absence of reply and documents which the Assessee has failed to file, hence, for just decision of the case and for the ends of justice, we are inclined to remand the instant case to the file of the Ld. Commissioner for decision afresh, suffice to say by affording reasonable opportunity of being heard to the Assessee, thus ordered accordingly.

The Assessee is also directed to appear, if requires and file the relevant documents which would be needed for proper and real adjudication of the case and in case of further default, the Assessee shall not be entitled for any leniency.

4.

In the result, appeal filed by the Assessee stands allowed for statistical purposes.

Order pronounced in the open court on 30-10-2023.

More judgments on Section 68

All 29,931 judgments and leading authorities on Section 68 →

Recent GST High Court judgments

Search GST case law →