INCOME TAX OFFICER, WARD-1, DIMAPUR vs. SMT. DEEPA LUHADIA, DIMAPUR

At the outset, the Ld. A.R Smt. Arati Agarwal submitted that the department has preferred these appeal after more than 700 days and therefore, she objected to the admission of these revenue’s appeals against Ld. CIT(A) giving relief to the assessee’s. According to her, the exception made in the circular of CBDT prescribing monetary limits for Revenue to prefer appeals in Tribunal/High Court/ Supreme Court cannot be read retrospectively. So, she wants us to dismiss these appeals at the threshold before admission itself. Per contra, the Ld. D.R Shri Subhrajyoti Bhattacharjee submitted that the impugned orders of Ld. CIT(A) gave all the captioned assessee’s relief on penny stock cases. Therefore, the department / CBDT has taken out these penny stock cases from the ambit of circular (tax effect). In respect of granting condonation of delay, the Ld. D.R submitted that the Tribunal/High Court/Supreme Court has been liberal in granting condonation of delay provided there is sufficient reasons to justify the same; and since the CBDT became aware of the menace of penny stock cases, have taken a decision albeit late to exclude these cases from the ambit of tax effect, to prefer appeal by the department; and since it was a policy decision, time was consumed and delay happened, so, he pleaded that delay in filing appeal may be condoned and appeal be admitted and heard on merits. And in respect of application of circular retrospectively, the Ld DR submitted that the question of law raised by the assessee needs to be argued at length and he pleaded for admission of the appeal by condoning the 705 days delay. In her rejoinder, the Ld. A.R suggested an alternative plea to let the appeal of the revenue be admitted, so that it will pave way for the assessee’s to avail for the Direct Tax Vivad Se Viswas Scheme, 2020 (hereinafter, the ‘scheme’). to 19/GAU/2020 Shri Ajit Jain(HUF) & Ors. A.Y. 2014-15 3. Having heard both the parties and after taking into consideration the contention put forth, we note that these revenue’s appeals pertain to penny stock matter. And we are inclined to allow the alternate plea of Ld AR, so we condone the delay for filing the appeals by the Department. We hasten to add that this action of ours to condone the delay of 705 days should not be taken as a precedent, since it is only to pave way for the assessee’s to avail the scheme. In the light of the aforesaid discussion, we condone the delay and admit revenue’s appeals.

Since we have admitted the appeals as per the alternate prayer of Ld. A.R, we take note of the assessee’s intention /undertaking to avail/file Form 1 and 2 of the scheme before 31.01.2021 (cut-off date as on date to avail for the scheme). In such an event, there is no point in keeping the appeals of revenue pending. Therefore, taking note of the undertaking given before us to avail for the scheme by filing Form 1 and 2, we treat revenue’s appeals as withdrawn/dismissed. In case, if the assessee’s offer are not accepted, the revenue is at liberty to move appropriate application for recalling of these orders. And needless to say that our action of treating the revenue’s appeals as withdrawn/dismissed even before the assessee had filed Form 1 and 2 as discussed supra, will not preclude the designated authority under the Scheme to accept the Form 1 and 2 to be filed by the assessee and thereafter to issue Form no. 3 etc in accordance to scheme/law.

In the result, all the four appeals of the Revenue are dismissed as withdrawn.