ASHIRWAD SKY HEIGHTS TOWER P. LTD.,MUMBAI vs. PR. CIT-1, MUMBAI

At the outset, the Ld.AR of the assessee, Shri Rakesh Joshi drew our attention to the fact that the last date for giving effect to the impugned order of the Ld.PCIT by the Assessing Officer was on 31/03/2022. However, as per the information of assessee, till date the AO has not passed any consequential / giving effect order pursuant to the impugned order of Ld.PCIT dated 31.03.2021. To support his above contention, he has filed before us the status report from the Income-tax Department Portal wherein the assessment for A.Y. 2012-13 is shown as “open” as well as specifying the limitation time as 31st March, 2022. Therefore, according to the Ld.AR, since the Assessing Officer has not passed any consequential / giving effect order pursuant to the impugned order of Ld.PCIT, it can be persumed that AO after enquiry has dropped the framing of re-assessment and anyway, the impugned order loses its force and is not executable. So according to him there is no point in pursuing further in respect of this appeal because there is no tax consequence for the assessee and the adjudication of this appeal would be only academic in nature.

Per contra, the Ld.CIT(DR), Shri Rajesh Kumar submitted that there is no information from the Assessing Officer about giving effect to consequential order pursuant to the impugned order of Ld.PCIT, even though he tried to obtain it as directed by the Bench on the previous date (20/04/2022) when the matter was listed.

Having heard both the parties, we note that the assessee has challenged the impugned order of the Ld.PCIT before this Tribunal. However, according to it, no consequential / giving effect order has been passed by the Assessing Officer pursuant to the impugned order of Ld.PCIT within the limitation period which 3 ITA 910/Mum/2021 expired on 31/03/2022. Therefore, according to assessee, it can be safely persumed that AO after enquiry has dropped the framing of re-assessment and anyway the order of Ld.PCIT which is impugned, has lost its power since it cannot be executed by the Assessing Officer after the limitation period on 31/03/2022. Therefore, according to Ld AR, the adjudication of the impugned order of Ld.PCIT in the light of the aforesaid facts will be futile and academic in nature. We note from the assessee’s contention that since consequential order had to be passed by the Assessing Officer before 31st March, 2022 in the light of the impugned orde, it can be safely inferred that the Assessing Officer has dropped the re- assessment after enquiry as directed by the Ld.PCIT. And in any case, the impugned order of Ld.PCIT has lost its power and is unenforceable after 31.03.2022. Therefore, we agree with the assessee that even if we adjudicate the appeal, it will be academic in nature. So we are inclined to dismiss assessee’s appeal with a caveat that in case if the Assessing Officer had passed the consequential / giving effect order pursuant to the impugned order of Ld.PCIT, then the assessee can move appropriate application for recalling this order. With this observation, the appeal of the assessee is dismissed.

In the result, appeal of the assessee is dismissed.