PRACHI AGARWAL,RAMNAGAR vs. DC/ACIT CENT HALDWANI AT MRT, HALDWANI
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Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, DELHI
Before: SHRI YOGESH KUMAR U.S. & SHRI MANISH AGARWAL
1 ITA No. 27/DDN/2025 Prachi Agarwal
IN THE INCOME TAX APPELLATE TRIBUNAL DELHI [ DELHI BENCH : “DEHRADUN/SMC” NEW DELHI] BEFORE SHRI YOGESH KUMAR U.S., JUDICIAL MEMBER AND SHRI MANISH AGARWAL, ACCOUNTANT MEMBER I.T.A. No. 27/DDN/2025 (A.Y 2022-23) Prachi Agarwal Vs. DC/ACIT C/o. Sidharth Goel, Sarrafa Cent Haldwani at MRT, Chowk, Ramnagar, Room No. 4, 2nd Floor Uttarakhand- 244715 Aayakar Parishar, HLD, PAN: AGKPA2528D REAC, Haldwani, Uttarakhand
Appellant Respondent Assessee by Sh. Pranav Yadav, Adv Revenue by Sh. A. S. Rana, Sr. DR Date of Hearing 09/07/2025 Date of Pronouncement 09/07/2025 ORDER PER YOGESH KUMAR, U.S. JM: The present appeal is filed by the Assessee against the order of
CIT(A)/National Faceless Appeal Centre (‘Ld. CIT(A)’/NFAC’ for short),
Delhi dated 27/01/2025 for the Assessment Year 2022-23.
Brief facts of the case are that, a penalty order u/s 271B of the
Income Tax Act, 1961 ('Act' for short) came to be passed on 27/09/2024
on the pretext that the Assessee has not filed audited books of account
within the due date i..e 07/10/2022. Aggrieved by the order of the
penalty, the Assessee preferred an Appeal before the Ld. CIT(A). The Ld.
CIT(A) vide order dated 27/01/2025, dismissed the Appeal of the
2 ITA No. 27/DDN/2025 Prachi Agarwal
Assessee by confirming the order of the penalty. As against the order of
the Ld. CIT(A), the Assessee preferred the present Appeal.
The Ld. Counsel for the Assessee vehemently submitted that the
Assessee could not finalizehis books of account before due date i.e.
07/10/2022 due to the fact that the Investigating Wing had impounded
certain documents and even after making several requests for providing
the photo copies of those impounded documents, the Investigating Wing
has not provided those documents on time, which resulted in preparing
the audit report belatedly. The Ld. Counsel submitted that the Assessee
has filed the audit report on 19/04/2023, which is well within passing of
the assessment order u/s 147 r.w. Section 143(3) of the Act. Thus,
relying on plethora of Judgments, sought for deletion of the penalty
which has been confirmed by the Ld. CIT(A) vide order impugned.
Per contra, the Ld. Departmental Representative relying on the
orders of the Lower Authorities, submitted that the prescribed date for
filing the audited books of account was 30/09/2022, whereas books of
account was audited only on 04/04/2023, therefore, the Assessee is
liable for penal action u/s 271(B) of the Act, thus submitted that the
present Appeal is liable to be dismissed.
3 ITA No. 27/DDN/2025 Prachi Agarwal
We have heard both the parties and perused the material available
on record. It was the case of the Assessee that the audited books of
account of the Assessee could not be audited within the due date as the
documents were seized by the Department for the year under
consideration, which resulted in delay in preparing the audit statement.
Apart from the same, the audited books of account have been filed by the
Assessee filed on 19/04/2023, whereas the assessment order came to be
passed on 24/03/2024. The Hon'ble High Court of Kerala in the case of
the Chavakkad Service Co-operative bank ltd., the Elavally service Co-
operative Bank Ltd,.Kundayam service co-operative bank ltd., the
Paravur service co-operative bank ltd. V/s. The income tax officer ward 1
& TPS, Vide Judgment dated 22/11/2204, in the similar circumstances,
decided the issues in favour of the Assessee by deleting the penalty. In
the said case, the assesseedid not file the Report as mandated under
section 44AB within time limit specified thereunder, however, audit
reports were made available before Assessing Authority at time of
finalization of assessments. Since delay in obtaining audit reports from
statutory auditors under Kerala Co-operative Societies Act and Rules
could be seen as a reasonable cause for delayed submission of audit
reports held that no penalty under section 271B was to be imposed on
assessee.
4 ITA No. 27/DDN/2025 Prachi Agarwal
In the present case, the Assessee was having reasonable cause for
delayed submission of audit reports and the same has been filed well
within passing the assessment order. Therefore, by respectfully following
the above ratio laid down by the Hon'ble High Court of Kerala in the case
of Chavakkad Service Co-operative bank Ltd (supra),we delete the
penalty imposed by the Department which has been confirmed by the Ld.
CIT(A).
In the result, the appeal of the Assessee is allowed.
Order pronounced in the open court on 09th July , 2025
Sd/- Sd/-
(MANISH AGARWAL) (YOGESH KUMAR U.S.) ACCOUNTANT MEMBER JUDICIAL MEMBER Date:- 09.07.2025 R.N, Sr.P.S* Copy forwarded to: 1. Appellant 2. Respondent 3. CIT 4. CIT(Appeals) 5. DR: ITAT ASSISTANT REGISTR ITAT, NEW DELHI
5 ITA No. 27/DDN/2025 Prachi Agarwal
