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Judgment
PER SANJAY AWASTHI, ACCOUNTANT MEMBER:
This is a batch of two appeals pertaining to the same assessee. It is seen that before the Ld. CIT(A) the appeal for AY 2020-21 (ITA 6798) was delayed by 72 days and the appeal for AY 2021-22 (ITA 6799) was delayed by approximately 29 months before the Ld. First Appellate Authority. Both these appeals have been dismissed on the ground that good and sufficient reasons were not put forth by the assessee for justifying the delay and thus, the Ld. CIT(A) did not find reason to condone the delays.
The assessee has challenged the impugned orders and has filed an affidavit to explain the situation and reasons for delay. Since the contents of the affidavit are germane to the issue at hand, the same deserves to be extracted: -
“I, Arvind Kumar Jha, S/o Sh. Prem Lai Jha R/o house no. 71, Shanti nagar, Tulsi nagar, Marwari wadi, Nagpur city H.O, Nagpur (urban), Nagpur, 440002 do hereby solemnly affirm on oath as under:-
1.That basically I am a pandit and doing puja work for day to day household expenses in Nagpur.
2.That I have not done any transactions and rather my bank account has been used by somebody else.
3.That I was not aware of any bank account being operated in my name as well as obtaining GST number in my name.
4.That I was also not aware whether any assessment proceeding is being conducted by the income tax department in my case for AY 2021-22.
5.That on 19.05.2025 I received a phone call from the income tax department vide phone no. 8076454768 that some penalty notice in your case is to be served and he told me that he is speaking from Delhi income tax office and he asked for my address detail.
6.That after receipt of the above said phone call I contacted with a chartered accountant based in Nagpur and narrated him the above facts. After sometime the above CA asked me the detail of my PAN and opened the income tax portal and told me that an assessment order for AY 2021-22 and AY 2020-21 has been passed by the faceless assessing officer and huge demand of Rs.41.10 crore has been created in AY 2021-22 and in AY 2020-21 demand of Rs.2.35 crore has been created.
7.That the above said CA advised me to go to Delhi to verify the above said facts as the demand has been created on some Delhi address.
8.That on 26.05.2025 I reached at Delhi and went to the address which was mentioned in the above said assessment order. After reaching there I found there was some flat and I also enquired from the neighbors of that flat that who was using the flat and whether any business was being conducted from this flat or not but nobody told me about these things.
9.That in Delhi I contacted a CA and also narrated the above said facts to that CA and along with him I went to the Income Tax Department situated at Civic Centre, New Delhi but I could not contact the concerned income tax officer who was having jurisdiction over my case.
10.That later on Delhi CA suggested me that now you have to file an appeal against this assessment order. And thus with this above background as per the advice of the Nagpur CA and Delhi CA I filed the appeal before the CIT(A) on 29.05.2025.”
The Ld. AR also presented a brief of his arguments and stated that the assessee was a victim of fraud and he resides in Nagpur. The assessee had absolutely no knowledge of any proceedings against him that too at Delhi. It was the prayer that the matter may be restored in both the years to the file of Ld. AO for fresh assessment so that the Ld. AO could be apprised of the fraud that was perpetrated against the assessee.
The Ld. DR relied on the orders of the authorities below.
We have carefully considered the submissions of Ld. AR/DR and have gone through the records before us. It is seen that the assessee has been able to convincingly make out a case for condoning the delay before the first appellate authority. Accordingly, considering the contents of the affidavits (supra) and the averments of Ld. AR, we deem it fit to set aside the impugned orders for both the years and remand both these matters to the file of the Ld. AO. The assessee would be required to make a full presentation of facts before the Ld. AO and the Ld. AO would give ample opportunity of being heard.
In the result, the two appeals are allowed for statistical purposes.