RAMASUBRAMANIAN SABAPATHY,BENGALURU vs. ACIT/DCIT, CIRCLE 3(3)(1), BENGALURU

This appeal is filed with a delay of 39 days and also filed an application to condone the said delay. In the said application, the assessee submitted that he is an IT professional and has no knowledge about the income tax proceedings and therefore depended on a tax consultant. But the said tax consultant could not follow up the matter with the authorities and therefore the assessee had changed the said consultant and entrusted the appeal to be filed before this Tribunal to a new consultant and therefore the said delay of 39 days has occurred.

We have considered the said reasons and also considered the said delay as they are minimal one and therefore condone the said delay and proceeded to decide the appeal on merits.

At the outset, we have also found that the order of the Ld.CIT(A) is also not on merits but only decided based on the limitation. Similarly, the assessment was also made u/s. 144 of the Act. The assessee filed an affidavit before this Tribunal in support of the facts and submitted that the notices issued by the AO was not received by him and submitted that the said notices might have gone to the spam folder of the assessee’s email ID which got automatically deleted after the expiry of 30 days and therefore the assessee has no knowledge about the proceedings initiated by the AO and also the order passed u/s. 147 of the Act. Therefore, the assessee submitted that the appeal before the Ld.CIT(A) was filed with a delay of 351 days and also filed an application to condone the said delay. In the said application, the assessee submitted about his personal loss which affects his physical and mental health and therefore the assessee was not able to concentrate on the income tax proceedings and also unable to get proper advice for the assessment as well as for filing the appeal. The Ld.CIT(A) had not accepted the said reasons as sufficient cause and dismissed the appeal as barred by limitation.

We have considered the said submission made by the assessee before the Ld.CIT(A) along with the reasons stated for the delay in filing the present appeal before this Tribunal and also the documents filed before us and we are of the considered view that the assessee could be granted one more opportunity to prove his case before the authorities. As seen from the grounds and the submissions before the Ld.CIT(A) and also the documents enclosed in the paper book, we find that the assessee had proper explanations for all the allegations made by the AO but unfortunately because of the non-receipt of the notices, physical and mental illness, he was not able to represent the issue before the authorities in an effective manner. We, therefore took a lenient view and set aside the order of the Ld.CIT(A) and also condoned the delay of 351 days in filing the appeal before the Ld.CIT(A) and remitted this issue to the file of AO for denovo consideration.

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