SENGOTTAIYAN KRISHNAMOORTHI,NAMAKKAL vs. ITO, WARD-3, NAMAKKAL

Brief facts of the case are that from the records available with the Department, the Assessing Officer has noticed that the assessee made cash deposits of ₹.12,81,600/- into his saving bank account maintained with ICICI Bank during the financial year 2009-10, but, the assessee has not filed his return of income for this assessment year. The veracity of the sources through which the said deposits were made could not be verifiable in the absence of any return of income. Since there was reasons to believe that income chargeable to tax had escaped assessment, the case of the assessee was reopened under section 147 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 [“Act” in short] and notice under section 148 of the Act has been issued on 31.03.2017 and served on the assessee by post on 04.04.2017. However, there was no response from assessee. Notice under section 142(1) of the Act dated 07.07.2017 & 04.08.2017 were issued requesting the assessee to file the return of income and explanation for cash deposits made in the above said bank with evidences/supporting documents. However, there was no response from the assessee. Another notice under section 142(1) r.w.s. 129 of the Act dated 26.10.2018 was also issued. Further, notice under section 142(1) of the Act dated 09.11.2018 intimating the assessee about the proposed action to complete the assessment proceedings under section 144 of the Act was also issued. Since the assessee has not responded to various notices issued, after verification of Bank account details, the Assessing Officer proceeded to conclude the best judgement assessment under section 144 r.w.s. 147 of the Act dated 22.11.2018 and the entire credits including cash deposits made into the assessee’s bank account of ₹.13,19,600/- were treated as unexplained credit under section 69A of the Act and brought to tax. On appeal, the ld. CIT(A) dismissed the appeal filed by the assessee since the assessee has not responded to various notices issued by the ld. CIT(A) or filed any supporting documents.

On being aggrieved, the assessee is in appeal before the Tribunal. None appeared on behalf of the assessee despite notice of hearing has been issued to the assessee. Hence, we proceed to decide the appeal on merits after hearing the ld. DR.

We have heard the ld. DR, perused the materials available on record and gone through the orders of authorities below. The Assessing Officer has completed the assessment under section 144 r.w.s. 147 of the Act and the ld. CIT(A) (NFAC) has also completed exparte appellate order despite various notices issued by the authorities below. In this case, against the notice under section 148 of the Act, there was no response from the assessee. Further, the 4 assessee has also not responded to any of the notices issued by the Assessing Officer. We have gone through the best judgement assessment order passed under section 144 r.w.s. 147 of the Act and also appellate order passed by the ld. CIT(A). We are of the considered opinion that the assessee shall be afforded one more opportunity of being heard to substantiate his case to meet the ends of natural justice. Accordingly, we remit the matter back to the file of the Assessing Officer to decide the issues afresh after considering the details as may be filed by the assessee. The assessee is also directed to furnish complete details before the Assessing Officer without fail.

In the result, the appeal filed by the assessee is allowed for statistical purposes.