SHATAJ BEEGUM SHAFEEK,TRICHY vs. ITO, WARD-2(1), TRICHY

The Assessee raised the following grounds of appeal : “1. The order dated 20/3/2026 passed by the Commissioner (Appeals) National Faceless Appeal Centre dated 20/3/2026 is objected to on the following grounds

The learned Commissioner (Appeals) ought to have appreciated the fact that the assessee had been a resident of Trichy, Tamailnadu and the common house property in which the assessee had a share was situated at Bangalore and since the other major male members promised that the appeal matter of the assessee would be taken care of by them at Bangalore itself the assessee did not file her return of income at Bangalore.

The learned Commissioner (Appeals) ought to have appreciated the fact that the assessee being a purdha lady was averse to meeting men other than her husband abstained from filing the return and hence was declared a non filer of income tax return and was slapped with an ouer ex partee over pitched assessment.

The learned Commissioner of Income tax (Appeal) ought to have appreciated the fact that the indexed value of the land that was sold at Bangalore was more than the sale value and hence there was no capital gains tax in the assessee's hands.

The learned Commissioner of Income tax(Appeals) ought to have appreciated the fact that hade applied the telescoping principle of setting off the sale value of land of Rs.25,17,751 into the cash deposit of Rs.30,00,500 there had been a sum of Rs.4,82,749 only which falls under the category of the regular income of the assessee from her other activities such as providing bridal make up to new brides, giving crash courses in teaching the soon to be brides the art of preparing delicious non vegetarian recipes, taking home tuitions for school going children in urdu, Hindi etc and taking people on tours etc.

The learned Commissioner (Appeals) ought to have appreciated the fact that the lady used to save her own funds from the amounts that her husband makes available every month for family maintenance and from joining chit schemes etc.

The learned Commissioner (Appeals) ought to have remanded the matter to the local officer to cause local enquiries through the inspector which is a step very often resorted to by the Assessing Officer to fix the income in the case of a person who seems to be a person not conversant with complying with various notices from various departments etc.

The learned Commissioner (Appeals) ought not to have supported the Assessing Officer who has not made any attempts to know the financial details of the assessee and who had made a deliberate over pitched assessment ignoring his duties as ordained in section 144.

The assessee craves leave to file additional grounds and or additional evidences as the hearing progresses in case a need arises for the same.

The assessee under the circumstances submits that the (Appeals) may be pleased to substitute the over pitched assessment with a reasonable assessment and render justice.”

Briefly, the facts of the case are that the appellant is an Individual. No regular Return of Income under the provisions of section 139 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 was filed by the appellant for the Assessment Year 2015-16. However, based on the information of the Insight Portal High Risk Transaction that the appellant made cash deposit of Rs.30,00,050/- in the savings bank account maintained with bank and also sold immovable property for a consideration of Rs.25,17,751/-. The Jurisdictional Assessing Officer formed an opinion that the income got escaped assessment from tax, accordingly a notice u/s.148 of the Act was issued on 28.07.2022 after duly following the procedure laid down u/s.148A of the Act and following the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Union of India Vs. Ashish Agarwal (2022) SCC Online SC 543 dated 04.05.2022. In response to notice u/s.148, the appellant neither complied with the notices issued u/s.148 of the Act, not the notices issued u/s.142(1) of the Act. In the circumstances, the Assessing Officer had proceeded with framing the best judgment assessment order vide order dated 22.05.2023 passed u/s.147 r.w.s 144 read with section 144B of the Act at a total income of Rs.55,18,251/-. While doing so, the Assessing Officer made addition of cash deposits of Rs.30,00,500/- made in the savings bank account maintained with bank as unexplained money of the appellant. The Assessing Officer made addition of capital gains of Rs.25,17,751/- on sale of immovable property.

Being aggrieved by the above assessment order, the appellant preferred an appeal before ld.CIT(A), who vide impugned order dismissed the appeal for non-prosecution without entering into the merits of the additions.

Being aggrieved by the order of ld.CIT(A), the appellant is in appeal before us in the present appeal.

We have heard rival submissions and perused the material available on record. We find that the ld.CIT(A) dismissed the appeal of the appellant for non-prosecution without entering into the merits of the addition. The CIT(A) without dealing with the contentions of the appellant merely dismissed the appeal in limine for non-prosecution. As contemplated u/s. 250(6) of the Act the CIT(A) is required to frame points of determination followed by a detailed discussion thereupon before passing the order. It is the settled position of law that the CIT(A), even while disposing of the appeal ex-parte, he is duty bound to dispose of the appeal on merits. Reliance in this regard can be placed on the decision of the Hon'ble Bombay High Court in the case of PCIT vs. Premkumar Arjundas Luthra 279 CTR 614. The Hon’ble Bombay High Court has held in the case of Pr.CIT(Central) Vs. Premkumar Arjundas Luthra (HUF) (Bombay)/[2017] 297 CTR 614 (Bombay) as under : Quote, “8.From the aforesaid provisions, it is very clear once an appeal is preferred before the CIT(A), then in disposing of the appeal, he is obliged to make such further inquiry that he thinks fit or direct the Assessing Officer to make further inquiry and report the result of the same to him as found in Section 250(4) of the Act.

Therefore, in the light of the above legal position, we are of the considered view that the matter requires to be remanded to the file of the CIT(A) with a direction to dispose of the appeal de novo on merits after affording reasonable opportunity of hearing to the assessee. All the contentions raised by the appellant are left open for consideration before the ld.CIT(Appeals).

In the result, the appeal filed by the assessee stands partly allowed for statistical purposes. Order pronounced in the open Court on 20th August, 2026.