ACIT, TRICHY vs. V. RAMESH, TRICHY

The above appeals filed by various appellant Assessing Officers, call into question the correctness of the relief granted to the respondent assessees by the Commissioners of Income Tax (Appeals) concerned and, most importantly, the tax effect involved in each of these appeals does not exceed Rs.50,00,000/-.

The CBDT in its circular No.17/2019 in F.No.279/Misc.142/2007-ITJ(Pt) dated 8th August, 2019, has further liberalized its policy for not filing appeals against the decisions of the appellate authorities in favour of the assessees, wherein tax involved 3288 to 3290/CHNY/2018 :- 3 -: is below certain threshold limits, and announced its policy decision not to file, or press, the appeals, before this Tribunal, against the appellate orders favourable to the assessee in the cases in which overall tax effect, excluding interest except when interest itself is in dispute, is Rs 50,00,000 or less.

The above circular, only enhances the monetary limits and gives further relaxation. The old circular, beyond any dispute or controversy, categorically applied to the pending appeals as on the date of issuance of circular.

Thus, the circular dated 8th August 2019 is not a standalone circular. It is to be read in conjunction with the CBDT circular No. 3/2018 (and subsequent amendment thereto), and all it does is to replace paragraph nos. 3 and 5 of the said circular. This is evident from the following extracts from the circular dated 8th August 2019: “2. As a step towards further management of litigation. it has been decided by the Board that monetary limits for filing of appeals in income-tax cases be enhanced further through amendment in Para 3 of the Circular mentioned above and accordingly, the table for monetary limits specified in Para 3 of the Circular shall read as follows:

Clearly, all other portions of the circular no. 3 of 2018 (supra) have remained intact. The portion which has remained intact includes paragraph 13 of the aforesaid circular which is as follows:

The Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of the Commissioner of Income Tax-5, New Delhi Vs. Keshav Power Ltd., in SLP No.21497/2019 dated 16.08.2019 reported in 2019(8)TMI 811(SC) has 3288 to 3290/CHNY/2018 :- 5 -: also applied the Circular No.17/2019 dated 08.08.2019 has dismissed the appeal holding as follows: “Since the tax effect involved in the matter is less than Rs.2/- crores, going by the latest circular issued by the CBDT, we see no reason to interfere in this matter. The Special Leave Petition is dismissed, leaving all the questions of law open”.

In view of the above factual background and the concession given by the CBDT circular No.17/2019 dated 08.08.2019, all the above appeals must be dismissed as withdrawn.

We grant liberty to the Revenue to point out, upon necessary further verifications, and to seek recall the dismissal of appeals and restoration of the appeals in the cases (i) in which it can be demonstrated that the appeals are covered by the exceptions, and (ii) which are inadvertently included in this bunch of appeals, wherein the tax effect, in terms of the CBDT circular (supra), exceeds Rs 50,00,000. We also make it clear that the respondent assessee shall also be at liberty to point out the cases which are wrongly included in the appeals so summarily dismissed, either owing to wrong computation of tax effect or owning to such cases being covered by the permissible exceptions- or for any other reason, and we will take appropriate remedial steps in this regard. , 3288 to 3290/CHNY/2018 :- 6 -: 9. In the circumstances, respectfully following the principles laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Commissioner of Income Tax-5, New Delhi Vs. Keshav Power Ltd., referred to supra and in the light of the above discussions, all the above appeals filed by the Revenue are found to be non-maintainable.

In the result, all the above appeals of the Revenue are dismissed as withdrawn.