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Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, DELHI BENCHES (CAMP AT MEERUT
Before: SHRI N.S. SAINI & SHRI KULDIP SINGH
ASSESSEE BY : Shri Mahesh Tyagi, Advocate REVENUE BY : Shri S.S. Rana, CIT DR Shri Munshi Ram Bihagra, Senior DR Date of Hearing : 10.01.2019 Date of Order : 29.01.2019
O R D E R PER KULDIP SINGH, JUDICIAL MEMBER : Since common questions of facts and law have been raised in the aforesaid appeals, the same are being disposed off by way of consolidated order to avoid repetition of discussion.
The appellant, Shri Madan Mohan Sharma (hereinafter referred to as ‘the assessee’) by filing the present appeals, sought to set aside the impugned order all dated 19.06.2018 qua the assessment years 2012-13, 2013-14 & 2015-16 on the identical grounds inter alia that :-
“1. That the order as passed by the authorities below is arbitrary, unjust, illegal and bad in law, because the authorities below has erred in law as well as in facts in passing the orders.
2. That the order as passed by the learned ITO is illegal on the facts and circumstances of the case, which has wrongly been confirmed by the Leaned CIT(A), ignoring the evidences produced before him and without giving the proper opportunity of being heard.
3. That the learned ITO/ CIT(A) was not justified in assessing the income of Rs.08,81,556/- in AYs 2012-13 & 1013- 14 and Rs.13,91,556/- in AY 2015-16 as income from other sources U/s 56,which was shown by the assessee as Agriculture income as per his estimate/account produced for A.Y. 2014-15, without any basis or material on record and without any credit found in the books of accounts and/or records as maintained by the assessee.
4. That the learned authorities below was not justified in, estimating the Agriculture Income on the basis of report of Tehsildar and Deputy District Magistrate for the current year i.e. F.Y. 2017-18, not related to the relevant year, and has not been confronted to the assessee 5. That the learned CIT(A) was also not justified in treating the income, assessed by ITO as income from other sources, without any basis or material on record. There is no cash credit/deposit of any income in any account of the assessee The Agriculture income was shown by the assessee on estimate/ rough basis only for rate purpose of other income, which was assessed U/s 56 illegally.”
Briefly stated the identical facts for adjudication of all the aforesaid three appeals of assessee pertaining to Assessment Years 2012-13, 2013-14 & 2015-16 at hand are : Assessing Officer reopened the assessment under section 147 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (for short ‘the Act’) by way of issuing notice u/s 148 of the Act by noticing that the assessee has shown huge agricultural income out of a meager land of 77.3055 bighas which was assessed at Rs.6,18,444/- in AY 2014-15 and the remaining amount of Rs.13,81,556/- claimed as agricultural income was treated as ‘income from other sources’. Assessee has shown agricultural income of Rs.15,00,000/- in AYs 2012-13 & 2013-14 and Rs.20,00,000/- in AY 2015-16. AO, after issuing the notice u/s 148 of the Act and due to non-cooperation of the assessee, proceeded to frame the assessments u/s 144 of the Act in AYs 2012-13, 2013-14 & 2015-16.
Assessee carried the matter by way of an appeal before the ld. CIT (Appeals) who has confirmed the addition by dismissing the appeals. Feeling aggrieved, the assessee has come up in appeals before the Tribunal.
We have heard the ld. Authorized Representatives of the parties to the appeal, gone through the documents relied upon and orders passed by the revenue authorities below in the light of the facts and circumstances of the case.
The ld. AR for the assessee challenged the impugned order passed by ld. CIT (A) on the sole ground that adequate opportunity of being heard is not given to the assessee by the AO and the assessee being bed-ridden due to sickness has failed to defend the assessment and his counsel, Shri R.K. Jain has not appeared before the concerned authorities nor filed any papers nor replied any queries made by the income-tax authorities resulting into assessment orders passed u/s 144/147 of the Act. However, on the other hand, ld. DR for the Revenue defended the impugned orders passed by the AO/ld. CIT (A) on the ground that the assessee himself is not serious to participate in the assessment as well as appellate proceedings, no further opportunity should be granted and relied upon the decision of the ld. CIT (A).
However, the ld. AR for the assessee brought on record documents from pages 1 to 26 of the paper book to prove the medical history of the assessee that he was lying sick since 2008 and has been constantly getting treatment from different Doctors which show that assessee was lying sick. Even, the perusal of the assessment orders passed by the AO shows that only one notice u/s 148 of the Act was issued and claimed to have regularly sent letters to the assessee but without procuring his presence, AO proceeded to frame the assessments u/s 144 of the Act stating that the case is time barred in nature and after estimating the agricultural income of the assessee, assessed the remaining income from other sources.
Bare perusal of the assessment order as well as orders passed by the ld. CIT (A) go to prove that adequate opportunity of being heard has not been given to the assessee by the AO and during the appellate proceedings, counsel engaged by the assessee has not provided any documents to the ld. CIT (A) to reach at the logical conclusion. We are of the considered view that because of inefficiency or negligence of the counsel, the assessee cannot be made to suffer and he should be given adequate opportunity to defend his case who is admittedly owner of agricultural land measuring 77.3055 bighas and it is for the assessee to explain as to what crops he was growing and what was his income because agricultural income depends upon various reasons as sometimes a farmer is engaged in sowing and reaping the cash crops and his income used to be more and in case the farmer is into sowing the seasonal crop like wheat and paddy, his income certainly would be less.
8. Keeping in view the fact that the assessee was confined to bed due to sickness, he could not defend his case before AO as well as ld. CIT (A) and in these circumstances, contentions raised by the ld. DR are not sustainable, hence impugned order passed by the AO/CIT (A) for AYs 2012-13, 2013-14 & 2015-16 are hereby set aside and the cases are remanded back to AO to decide afresh after providing an opportunity of being heard to the assessee.
Resultantly, all the three appeals filed by the assessee are allowed for statistical purposes. Order pronounced in open court on this 29th day of January, 2019.