KUNNATHAN MEERAVU ABBAS,KUNNATHAN HOUSE vs. ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX,CENTRAL CIRCLE 2,ERNAKULAM, M G ROAD

The Assessing Officer made the assessment based on the search made u/s.132 of the Act and making additions under the head personal expenses, addition on account of unexplained personal loan and addition of interest income from bank. The assessee challenged the said order before the CIT(A), but unfortunately the assessee was not represented and therefore the ld.CIT(A) had decided the appeal ex parte and dismissed the appeal. As against the said order of the & 802/Coch/2023. Kunnathan Meeravu Abbas. CIT(A), the present appeal has been filed by the assessee and the assessee mainly contended that the ld.CIT(A) had passed an ex parte order without granting sufficient opportunity to the assessee.

At the time of hearing before us, the assessee submitted that for the additions made by the AO, the assessee is having necessary documents and the same could not be produced before the ld.CIT(A) and prayed to grant one more opportunity to present the case before the ld.CIT(A).

The learned CIT-DR relied on the orders of the lower authorities and prayed to dismiss the appeal.

We have heard the rival parties and perused the material available on record. Since both the appeals are on the same set of facts and the assessee is also one and the same, for the sake of convenience we are taking up both the appeals together and disposed of by a common order. As seen from the appeal order, the ld.CIT(A) had granted five opportunities to the assessee by sending notices to the assessee about the dates of hearing. The assessee also submitted that he was not able to appear before the ld.CIT(A) since the notices sent through the email were not viewed by the assessee in time. We find that the ld.CIT(A) had admittedly passed an ex parte order without hearing the assessee and, in the interest of justice, we are inclined to grant an opportunity to the assessee to appear before the ld.CIT(A) and produce the necessary records in support of its claim. Accordingly, we set & 802/Coch/2023. Kunnathan Meeravu Abbas. aside the orders of the ld.CIT(A) and remit the issue to the file of the ld.CIT(A) with a direction to consider the documents, if any, to be filed by the assessee and decide the appeals on merits after granting an opportunity of being heard to the assessee.

In the result, the appeals by the assessee are allowed for statistical purposes.