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Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, SURAT BENCH, SURAT
Before: SHRI PAWAN SINGH, JM & DR. A. L. SAINI, AM
सुनवाईकीतारीख/ Date of Hearing : 29/08/2023 घोषणाकीतारीख/Date of Pronouncement : 30/08/2023 आदेश / ORDER PER DR. A. L. SAINI, AM: Captioned appeal filed by the assessee, pertaining to assessment year 2012-13, is directed against the order passed by the National Faceless Appeal Centre, Delhi [ ‘NFAC/Ld. CIT(A)’ for short] dated 21.02.2023, which in turn arises out of an assessment order passed by the Assessing Officer under section 144 r.w.s. 147 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as “the Act”), dated 29.11.2019.
At the outset, Learned Counsel for the assessee, begins by pointing out that during the appellate proceedings, the assessee has appeared before the NFAC/ Ld. CIT(A) and made a request for a short adjournment to submit the details and documents. However, later on, due to circumstances beyond the control of the assessee, the assessee could could not appear before the NFAC/Ld. CIT(A), on the appointed date of hearing. The Ld.
A.Y.12-13 Sh. Bishnu Shankar Tiwari Counsel submitted that NFAC/Ld. CIT(A) should have given another date of hearing to submit the details and documents before him for adjudication on merit. However, ld CIT(A) did not allow further date of hearing to the assessee and passed ex-parte order, which is against the principle of natural justice. The NFAC/ld CIT(A) has not adjudicated all the grounds raised by assessee and has not considered the findings of the Assessing Officer in right perspective. Therefore, Ld. Counsel contended and prayed before the Bench that one more opportunity should be given to the assessee to plead his case before Assessing Officer.
On the other hand, Ld. Sr.DR for the Revenue opposed such prayer made by the Ld. Counsel to remit the case back to the file of lower authorities and Ld. Sr-DR argued that appeal of assessee should be dismissed.
We have heard both the parties and perused the materials available on record. We note that assessment order passed by Assessing Officer is an ex parte order u/s 144 r.w.s. 147 on 29.11.2019. On appeal before NFAC/Ld. CIT(A) the assessee has participated in the appellate proceedings and sought an adjournment, to file details and documents. However, due to circumstances beyond assessee’s control, assessee could not file such documents and evidence at the time of appellate proceedings and therefore NFAC/Ld. CIT(A) passed an ex parte order. Therefore, we note that assessee could not appear and plead his case at the time of appellate stage. We note that Assessment order was passed by the Assessing Officer u/s 144 r.w.s. 147 of the Act, therefore we note that Assessing Officer has not examined the basic facts of the assessee`s case, hence we are of the view that case of the assessee should be restored back to the file of the Assessing Officer, to examine the facts and adjudicate the issue on merit. Therefore,
A.Y.12-13 Sh. Bishnu Shankar Tiwari we set aside the order of the NFAC/Ld. CIT(A) and remand the matter back to the file of the Assessing Officer for de novo assessment and to decide the matter in accordance to law after giving opportunity of being heard to the assessee. For statistical purposes the appeal of assessee is treated as allowed. 5. In the result, appeal of the assessee is allowed for statistical purposes.