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Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, “E” BENCH, MUMBAI
Before: SHRI SAKTIJIT DEY & SHRI RAMIT KOCHAR
Aforesaid appeal by the assessee is directed against the order dated 20th December 2013, passed by the learned Commissioner (Appeals)–4, Mumbai, for the assessment year 2011–12.
Briefly stated the facts are, assessee company is engaged in life insurance business. The Assessing Officer, while verifying the quarterly
2 Tata AIA Life Insurance Co. Ltd. TDS return in Form no.26Q for the fourth quarter, noticed that assessee has made short deduction of tax at source and issued an intimation under section 200A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (for short "the Act") raising a demand of ` 68,29,450. Against the intimation issued under section 200A, assessee preferred appeal before the learned Commissioner (Appeals).
The learned Commissioner (Appeals), however, dismissed the appeal of the assessee by holding that the intimation issued under section 200A, is not appealable under section 246A of the Act.
Learned Authorised Representative submitted, by virtue of amendment made to section 246 of the Act by Finance Act, 2012, remedy of appeal is provided against order passed under section 200A(1) of the Act in case of appeals filed on/or after 1st July 2012. In support of such contention, he relied upon the decision of Hon'ble Karnataka High Court in case of Insosys BPO Ltd. v/s ITO, in W.P. no.37311 of 2013 and others, vide judgment dated 21st August 2014. He, therefore, submitted that the order of the learned Commissioner (Appeals) deserves to be set aside.
3 Tata AIA Life Insurance Co. Ltd. 5. Learned Departmental Representative submitted, the matter may be restored back to the file of the learned Commissioner (Appeals) for hearing on merit.
We have considered the submissions of the parties and perused the material available on record. It is patent and obvious from the order of the first appellate authority that he has refused to entertain the appeal of the assessee on the ground that intimation issued under section 200A is not appealable under the provisions of section 246A of the Act. However, on going through the provisions of section 246A, it is noticed that by virtue of an amendment made to the said provisions by Finance Act, 2012, order passed under section 200A, are appealable before the learned Commissioner (Appeals). It is further observed, the Hon'ble Karnataka High Court in Infosys BPO Ltd. v/s ITO, has held that appeals filed before the learned Commissioner (Appeals) after 1st July 2012, against intimation under section 200A(1) of the Act are maintainable. In the present case, there is no dispute that assessee has filed the appeal before the learned Commissioner (Appeals) on 10th August 2012. That being the case, appeal filed by the assessee against the order passed under section 200A(1) is maintainable. Therefore, we are inclined to set aside the impugned order of the learned Commissioner (Appeals) and restore the matter
4 Tata AIA Life Insurance Co. Ltd. back to learned Commissioner (Appeals) for disposing of the same on merits after providing adequate opportunity of being heard to the assessee.
In the result, appeal is allowed for statistical purposes. Order pronounced in the open Court on 16.03.2016