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Judgment
PER SANJAY AWASTHI, ACCOUNTANT MEMBER:
This appeal arises from order dated 28.12.2023 u/s 250 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereafter as “the Act”), by NFAC, Delhi. In this case, the ITAT Registry has reported a delay of 771 days in the filing of this appeal. The assessee has filed an application for condonation of delay as under: -
“The appellate order w.r.t. caption subject was passed on 28.12.2023. Thus, an appeal had to be preferred by 25.02.2024. The above assessment was framed u/s 144 of the Act whereas the appellant became aware of such orders on receiving from the bank for attachment of bank account by the jurisdictional Assessing Officer. The appellant was astonished to know that such huge demand has been created against them and thus, immediately approached Tax Consultant for its remedial measures. It is admitted fact that ignorance of law is no excuse. But the appellant is not well versed with income tax procedures and is running normal business as a Bonafide assesses should not be hampered to stand still in business by creating such huge demand. The transactions are fully explainable for which an addition has been being held. Thus, an appeal deserves to be entertained for its hearing on merits to give justice to the humble appellant who had filed the return of income voluntarily.
In the circumstances the humble appellant requests your honor as held by Supreme Court of India in the case of Collector of Land Acquisiton vs. Mst. Katiji & Ors. 167 ITR 471 dated 19.02.1987 giving their verdict as under:
1.“Ordinarily a litigant does not stand to benefit by lodging an appeal late.
2.Refusing to condone delay can result in a meritorious matter being thrown out at the very threshold and cause justice to be defeated. As for this, when delay is condoned the highest that can happen is that a cause would be decided on merits after hearing the parties.
3.Every day’s delay must be explained does not mean that a pedantic approach should be made. Why not every hour’s delay, every second’s delay? The doctrine must be applied in a rational common sense pragmatic manner.
4.When substantial justice and technical considerations are pitted against each other, substantial justice deserves to be preferred for the other side cannot claim to have vested right in injustice being done because of a non-deliberate delay.
5.There is no presumption that delay is occasioned deliberately, or on account of culpable negligence, or on account of mala fides. A litigant does not stand to benefit by resorting to delay. In fact, he runs a serious risk.
6.It must be grasped that judiciary is respected not on account of its power to legalize injustice on technical grounds but because it is capable of removing injustice and is expected to do so.”
Considering the reasons given in this application, the delay is hereby condoned and the appeal is admitted for adjudication.
In this case, it is seen that the proceedings before the Ld. AO were carried out in a more or less ex parte manner since the assessee only filed a copy of his VAT Return in support of his claim of returned income. It is seen that before the Ld. CIT(A) also the assessee did not respond to the notices issued from his office fixing the case for hearing. Thereafter, the Ld. CIT(A) passed an ex parte order.
Before us the assessee himself appeared and informed that he was not conversant with tax proceedings and hence he was not able to substantially assist the authorities below in framing their respective orders. It was the prayer that he would engage an appropriate tax counsel to present the facts before the Ld. AO in case this Bench was inclined to accept his prayer of remanding the matter back to the file of Ld. AO.
The Ld. DR had no objection if the case was to be remanded back.
We have considered the documents before us and heard the assessee and the Ld. DR. We feel that in the interests of substantive justice, the assessee deserves another chance to present the facts before the authorities below. To this extent, we set aside the impugned order and remand this matter back to the file of the Ld. AO for fresh assessment. We except the assessee to be vigilant about the proceedings and the Ld. AO to give ample opportunity of being heard.
In the result, appeal is partly allowed for statistical purposes.