AI Structured Summary
Not yet generated for this judgment
Judgment
Per Renu Jauhri, Accountant Member:
This appeal by the assessee is against order dated 25.08.2023 of the National Faceless Appeal Centre (NFAC), Delhi, [hereinafter referred to as the ‘Ld. CIT(A)] arising out of the Assessment Order dated 04.12.2017 passed under section 143(3) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’) by the AO, (hereinafter referred to as the ‘AO’) pertaining to Assessment Year (A.Y.) 2015-16.
The assessee has raised the following grounds of appeal:-
“1.That the Ld Commissioner of Income Tax Appeal (Faceless) has erred in dismissing the appeal for non - appearance in response to :
(i)During Physical appellate proceeding, various submission including copy of Written Submission, Application under Rule 46A, list of cases were submitted and copy of 46 A application was acknowledged on 11/09/2019 was acknowledged by the office of CIT -Appeal- Ghazaiabd.
(ii)Form no 35- Dated 05/01/2018 filed opting the "No Communication through Email for notices".
(iii)Hearing Notice u/s 250 date 21/01/2021 issued during Corona Period
(iv)The email id as per form no 35 was - [email protected] whereas the Notice u/s 250 dated 18/07/2023 and 02/08/2023 were issued at " [email protected]"
(v)The assessee has duly participated in assessment proceeding and the Assessment order was passed u/s 143(3) by the AO.
2.That the Ld CIT- Appeal- Faceless has erred in dismissing the appeal for no prosecution being non appearance is contrary to Section 250(6) of the Act, as the CIT(A) has no power to dismiss an appeal on account of non-prosecution. The Ld CIT (A) further failed to appreciate that the said section mandates that the order of the CIT(A) shall be in writing and shall state the points for determination and render a decision thereon. Thus, the in the impugned CIT (A) order dated 25/08/2023 this exercise has not been carried out by the CIT(A) and therefore the order dated 25/08/2023 of the CIT(A) is unsustainable.
3.That the erstwhile Hon'ble CIT (A)- Ghazaibad has erred in not calling the remand report from the Ld AO in response to Application under Rule 46A (physical Hearing) dated 27/03/2019. Further the erstwhile Hon'ble CIT (A)- Ghazaibad has erred in not updating the manual order sheet of Appellate Proceeding to Faceless system.
4 The appellant reserves the right to add, amend, or withdraw any ground of appeal in the interest of justice.”
At the outset, it is seen that the appeal is filed with a delay of 498 days. The assessee has filed an application for condonation as well as an affidavit explaining the reasons of delay. It has been explained therein that the assessee being a senior citizen, had engaged a professional to represent him before Ld. CIT(A). Further, it had been specifically mentioned in Form 35 that communication should not be sent through email as the assessee was not well with modern technology. However, the notices by CIT(A) were sent on the email which remained unnoticed by the assessee. Even the appellate order dated 25.08.2023, was not in the knowledge of the assessee and he became aware of it when penalty notice u/s 271(1)(c) was received on 04.03.2025. Accordingly, he informed the tax counsel who filed the present appeal without any further delay.
After hearing Ld. AR, and in view of submissions made in the affidavit, we are of the considered view that the delay was caused due to genuine reasons. Hence, the delay of 498 days in filing of appeal is hereby condoned being bonafide and due to reasonable cause.
At the outset, Ld. AR has requested that the matter may be remanded to Ld. CIT(A) for fresh adjudication as no compliance could be made due to the reasons explained in the application for condonation. After considering, the facts and circumstances, in the interest of justice, we deem it appropriate to restore the matter to the Ld. CIT(A) for fresh adjudication on merits after giving due opportunity of being heard to the assessee.
In the result, appeal of the assessee is allowed for statistical purposes.