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Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, PUNE BENCH “A”, PUNE
Before: SHRI S.S. GODARA & DR. DIPAK P. RIPOTE
Assessee by None Revenue by Shri S.P. Walimbe Date of hearing 27-06-2022 Date of pronouncement 30-06-2022 आदेश / ORDER
PER S.S. GODARA, JM :
This assessee‟s appeal for AY 2013-14 arises against the CIT(A), Pune-5‟s order dated 18-04-2018 passed in case No. PN/CIT(A)-5/DCIT, Circle-7, Pune/10551/2016-17 involving proceedings under Section 271(1)(c) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, in short „the Act‟.
Case called twice. None appears at the assessee‟s behest. It is accordingly proceeded ex-parte.
Coming to assessee‟s sole substantive grievance that both the learned lower authorities have erred in law and on facts in imposing section 271(1)(c) penalty of Rs.1,52,908/-, we note at the outset from the perusal of Assessing Officer‟s corresponding show cause notice dated 03.03.2016 that 2 L M Bhandari he had nowhere specified as to whether this taxpayer‟s act and conduct during the course of assessment amounted to concealment of particulars of taxable income or furnishing of inaccurate particulars of such income.
Mr. Walimbe vehemently argued that the learned Assessing Officer had duly applied both the “or” as well as “and” limbs of the foregoing twin contingencies whilst initiating the impugned penalty. We find no merit in the Revenue‟s instant argument as such a penalty show cause notice reflects the Assessing Officer‟s foregoing failure which has been held fatal to the validity of the proceedings itself as per honourable jurisdictional high court‟s recent landmark decision in Mohd. Farhan A. Shaikh vs. ACIT
(2021) 434 ITR 1 (Bom) (FB). We, therefore, delete the impugned penalty for this precise reason alone. Ordered accordingly.
All other grounds on merits stand rendered academic.
This assessee‟s appeal is allowed in above terms.