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Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, JABALPUR BENCH “SMC”, JABALPUR
Before: SHRI KUL BHARAT
PER KUL BHARAT, VICE PRESIDENT.:
This appeal, by the assessee, is directed against the order of the Learned Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals), National Faceless Appeal Centre (NFAC) dated 29.12.2023 pertaining to the assessment year 2017-18. The assessee has raised the following grounds of appeal: -
1. The learned Commissioner of Income tax (Appeal) NFAC was not justified in passing exparte order without appreciating that appellant was prevented with reasonable cause in not filing the response as he was not aware of fixation of case.
2. The learned Commissioner of Income tax (Appeal) NFAC was not justified in confirming the addition without appreciating that appellant is a sahakari samiti and is maintaining proper books of accounts which are also audited and as income is below taxable limit no ITR was filed during the year.
3. The learned Commissioner of Income tax (Appeal) NFAC was not justified in confirming the addition of Rs.22,08,653/- on account of cash deposit in the bank account without appreciating that it was duly recorded in cash book and audit was also done and deposit amount pertains to turnover.
Page 2 of 4 4. The learned Commissioner of Income tax (Appeal) NFAC was not justified in confirming the action of AO treating the cash deposit of Rs.22,08,653 as unexplained money under section 69A of the Act without appreciating that the source of cash deposit is verifiable and is being deposit not only in demonetization period but it was deposited regularly during the year and was recorded in the books of account.
5. The appellant craves for leave to amend, add to or omit any ground up to the time of hearing of the appeal.”
The facts giving rise to the present appeal are that it was noticed by the Assessing Officer that there were cash deposits by the assessee society in its bank account. Therefore, the case was selected for scrutiny to verify the source of such cash deposits. Before the Assessing Officer, there was no compliance of the notices. Thus, the Assessing Officer passed an exparte order u/s 144 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred as to “the Act”) and assessed income at Rs.22,08,653/-. Aggrieved by this, the assessee preferred appeal before the Ld. CIT(A) who also dismissed the appeal exparte to the assessee. Now the assessee is in appeal before this Tribunal.
Apropos to the grounds of appeal, the Ld. Counsel for the assessee submitted that both the lower authorities have not given adequate opportunity to the assessee and the assessment order as well as the First Appellate Order passed orders exparte to the assessee. The Ld. Counsel for the assessee submitted that the AO did not consider the explanation offered regarding the cash deposits during the demonetization period.
On the other hand, the Ld. Departmental Representative (DR) opposed the submission and supported the orders of the lower authorities.
I have heard the Ld. Representatives of the parties and perused the material available on record. It is the grievance of the assessee that the material placed before the lower authorities Page 3 of 4 was not considered and without considering the same, the impugned additions have been made by the lower authorities. Therefore, considering the totality of the facts and the material placed before me, I am of the considered view that to sub-serve the principle of natural justice and to be fair with both the parties, deem it necessary and expedient under the facts of the present case to set aside the impugned orders and restore the assessment to the file of the Assessing Officer to verify the correctness of the claim of the assessee. Needless to say that the AO would provide adequate opportunity to the assessee for explaining the source of such cash deposits. The grounds raised in the appeal are allowed for statistical purposes.
In the result, the appeal of the assessee is allowed for statistical purposes.
Order pronounced in the open Court on 08/01/2025.