M/S. C CENTRIC SOLUTIONS PRIVATE LIMITED,BANGALORE vs. ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX, TDS-CPC, GHAZIABAD

The assessee has filed an appeal against the order of Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals)-10, Bangalore passed u/s. 200A and 250 of the Income Tax Act, 1961.

The assessee has raised the following grounds of appeal :

The Brief facts of the case are that the assessee is a private limited company engaged in the business of designing, developing and marketing and supporting various services including providing programming, conversions, electronic data, software development, sales & marketing, supporting & maintenance and other technical services to new and established information technology companies, network service providers, etc. The assessee has availed services from M/s.CDC Software Singapore Pte Ltd., Singapore and M/s. Pivotal Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and made payments for the services, which are in the nature of Fees for Technical Services and tax has to be deducted at 10% on such payments. The assessee has filed TDS returns in accordance with the provisions of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (in short 'the Act'). Subsequently the order has been passed by the TDS-CPC under Section 200A of the Act holding that TDS has to be deducted at source at the rate 20% under Section 195(1) r.w.s. 206AA as the PAN of the recipient was not mentioned in the Returns. Hence demand for short deduction of Rs.19, 12,977/- was raised along with interest and late payment charges. The assessee submits that the orders passed under Section 200A by TDS-CPC were never served on the assessee physically or otherwise and hence the assessee was not aware of the fact that such orders were passed in its case. The assessee come to know about the outstanding demand, when being pressed by the Income Tax Department and immediately filed appeal before the CIT (Appeals) with delay and the appeal was dismissed. Aggrieved by the order, the assessee has filed an appeal with the Tribunal.

At the time of hearing, the learned Authorized Representative submitted that no orders under Section 200A of the Act was served on the assessee till date and the question of filing the appeal with delay does not arise. The assessee after coming to know of the situation, that orders are uploaded in the portal of I.T. Department, immediately has filed appeal and there was no delay. Further, the assessee was deprived of an opportunity to substantiate the case on merits and prayed for an opportunity to substantiate before the assessing authorities. Contra, the learned Departmental Representative supported the orders of the CIT (Appeals).

We heard the rival submissions and perused the material on record. We find that there is no delay in filing of the appeal by the assessee as no order under Section 200A of the Act was physically served on the assessee. Hence the question of delay in filing the appeal does not arise and therefore the appeal is within the time. We find in assessee's own case, the co-ordinate Bench of this Tribunal in to 3080/Bang/2018 dt.7.6.2019 has held at page 4 para 8 to 11 of the order which is read as under :

The ld. CIT(Appeals) could not have dismissed the appeals for the reason that order u/s. 200A was not uploaded along with Form 35. Defects, if any, could have been rectified by giving notice to the assessee. The assessee is given liberty to download these orders from the portal of the Income Tax Department and file the same before the ld. CIT(A) electronically or otherwise. The third ground on which the CIT(A) has dismissed the assessee’s appeal is that separate appeals were not filed against each order. This defect should have also been brought to the notice of the assessee and an opportunity given to rectify the same. Liberty is granted to the assessee to file separate appeals as required by law.

The ld. CIT(A) nor any authority had considered all these issues on merits and disposed of the same in accordance with the law. Only the Computer has processed the orders. Under the circumstances, in our view, it would meet the ends of justice if all the orders u/s. 200A of the Act are set aside and matter restored to the file of the AO, to issue notice to the assessee, consider its objections on the matter and thereafter dispose of the cases on merits in accordance with law. Hence, we set aside all the impugned orders passed u/s. 200A of the Act for all these years and restore the matter to the file of the Assessing Officer for fresh adjudication in accordance with law.

In the result, all these appeals are allowed for statistical purposes.”

Accordingly, we found the facts of the present case are similar to the decision of the co-ordinate Bench and fallow the judicial precedence. Accordingly, we set the order of CIT (A) and restore entire disputed issues to the file of Assessing Officer for fresh adjudication and verification and pass a speaking order. Further, the assessee should be provided adequate opportunity of hearing and shall co- operate in submitting the information and we allow the grounds of appeal