GUBBA SEETHA ANIL KUMAR,HYDERABAD vs. INCOME TAX OFFICER, WARD-9(4), HYDERABAD

The assessee has raised the following grounds in his appeal: “1. The Order of the Learned First Appellate Authority is not correct either in law or on fact and in both.

2. The Learned First Appellate Authority is not justified in confirming the action of the Assessing Officer in restricting the cost of acquisition and completely ignoring the indexed cost of improvement as claimed by the appellant at Rs. 3,80,000/-.

Brief facts of the case are that the assessee is an individual, filed his return of income for the A.Y. 2011-12 on 18/07/2011 declaring total income of Rs. 1,74,600/- under the head ‘business income’ and ‘income from house property’. The case was taken up for scrutiny since information was received from Intelligence & Criminal Investigation Wing that the assessee had sold his residential house property against which capital gains was not declared. Thereafter, the Ld. AO completed the assessment ex-parte U/s. 144 r.w.s 147 of the Act assessing the LTCG of the assessee at Rs. 8,41,220/- and income from other source Rs. 3,55,403/- as the assessee had not appeared before the Ld. AO at the time of hearing. On appeal, the Ld. CIT (A) confirmed the order of the ld. AO because the assessee has not provided any further explanation.

At the outset, the Ld. AR requested that the matter may be remitted back to the file of the Ld. AO in order to provide the assessee with one more opportunity of being heard because now the assessee is in possession of all the relevant documents to justify his claim. The Ld. DR on the other hand vehemently opposed to the submissions of the Ld. AR and pleaded that the orders of the Ld. Revenue Authorities may be confirmed.

I have heard the rival submissions and carefully perused the materials on record. It is apparent from the orders of the Ld. Revenue Authorities that neither the assessee has co-operated before the Ld. AO at the time of hearing nor furnished any materials to justify its stand before the ld. CIT (A). In this situation, I do not find much strength in the arguments advanced by the Ld. AR. Further, even before us, at this stage, the assessee has not furnished any evidence to substantiate his claim. However, considering the issues in appeal and the financial position of the assessee, in the interest of justice, I hereby remit the matter back to the file of the Ld. AO thereby providing the assessee with one more opportunity of being heard. At the same breath, I also caution the assessee to promptly co-operate before the Ld. Revenue Authorities in order to expediate their proceedings failing which the Ld. Revenue Authorities shall be at liberty to pass appropriate orders in accordance with merit and law based on the materials on record.

In the result, appeal of the assessee is allowed for statistical purposes as indicated hereinabove.