RAJESH MATHEW,ERNAKULAM vs. ITO, WARD 1 & TPS ALUVA, ALUVA

The brief facts of the case are that the assessee is a civil contractor and he filed the return of income on 28/02/2017. Thereafter the case of the assessee was selected under CASS for complete scrutiny and assessment order u/s. 143(3) of the Act was passed on 18/12/2018 in which the AO accepted the returned income. Thereafter, the PCIT, Kochi under the power vested with him u/s. 263 of the Act had set aside the order of the AO and directed the AO to pass a fresh assessment order. Thereafter the AO issued various notices for which the assessee filed their replies and the AO had made an assessment u/s. 144 of the Act in which the cash deposits were treated as unexplained cash u/s. 68 of the Act. As against the said order, the assessee filed an appeal before the Ld.CIT(A). The Ld.CIT(A) decided the appeal ex-parte since the assessee had not appeared to the notices issued on various dates. As against the said order, the assessee is in appeal before this Tribunal.

At the time of argument, the Ld.AR submitted that the assessee had filed replies to the first two notices and sought for an adjournment. But unfortunately, for the balance two notices, the appellant was not informed about the same by the staff members of the firm in which the assessee is a partner. The Ld.AR submitted that the staff of the firm would view the official matters and thereafter if any notices were seen by the staff, they will automatically take it to the knowledge of the auditor for taking further action. When the first two notices were noticed by the staff, it was brought to the notice of the auditor and therefore adjournment petitions were filed in time. The Ld.AR further submitted that, unfortunately the last two notices were not noticed by the staff and therefore no response was filed to the same. The Ld.AR submitted that the non-response by the assessee was not on the fault of him and therefore prayed to set aside the order of the Ld.CIT(A).