Loading judgment…
No AI summary yet for this case.
Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, DELHI BENCH: ‘F’ NEW DELHI
Before: SHRI SAKTIJIT DEY & SHRI PRADIP KUMAR KEDIA
This is an appeal by the assessee against order dated 25.01.2019 of learned Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals) -38, Delhi, for the assessment year 2015-16.
The primary grievance of the assessee before us is against ex-parte disposal of appeal by learned Commissioner (Appeals).
We have heard the parties and perused the materials on record. Briefly the fact are, the assessee is a resident individual.
For the assessment year under dispute, the assessee filed his return of income on 23.09.2015 declaring income of Rs.1,00,60,640/-. The assessee’s case was selected for limited scrutiny and while completing the assessment, the Assessing Officer added back an amount of Rs.6,57,305/-, being interest paid to Gaurav International. The reason being, the unsecured loan on which the assessee is paying interest is a housing loan, which is not repaid by the assessee. Whereas, every year the assessee is crediting interest to the lender. Challenging the aforesaid addition, the assessee preferred an appeal before learned Commissioner (Appeals). As alleged by learned Commissioner (Appeals), since the assessee did not respond to the notice of hearing, she proceeded to dispose of the appeal ex- parte. While doing so, she confirmed the addition made by the Assessing Officer.
On perusal of the impugned order of learned Commissioner (Appeals), it is noticed that two hearing notices were issued to the assessee on 02.01.019 and 18.01.2019 fixing the date of hearing on 11.01.2019 and 25.01.2019 respectively. However, there is no further discussion by learned Commissioner (Appeals), as to whether such notices were actually served upon the assessee. It is further relevant to observe, the hearing notices were not only issued in close proximity, but the dates of hearing were given within a very short period from the date of issuance of hearing notices. In fact, the appeal was fixed for hearing and disposed of in the month of January, 2019 itself. These facts indicate that assessee’s appeal was disposed of in a hurried manner without affording reasonable opportunity or being heard to the assessee.
In the aforesaid view of the matter, we are inclined to set aside the impugned order of learned Commissioner (Appeals) and restore the issue back to her for fresh adjudication after due and reasonable opportunity of being heard to the assessee. Grounds are allowed for statistical purposes.
In the result, the appeal is allowed for statistical purposes.
Order pronounced in the open court on 12th May, 2022