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Judgment
This is a batch of seven appeals pertaining to the same assessee for AYs 2015-16 to 2021-22. For the sake of convenience ITA No.5942/Del/2026 pertaining to AY 2015-16 is being taken as the lead case, and all these appeals are being disposed of through a single order.
ITA 5942 arises from order dated 12.11.2025, passed u/s 250 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereafter as “the Act”), by Ld. CIT(A)-3, Gurgaon.
In these cases, there was a search and seizure operation on 15.01.2021 conducted at various premises of M/s Blomstrende Buildwell Pvt. Limited and Others. Thereafter, the assessee was served with a notice u/s 153A of the Act. It is a matter of record that during the course of search and seizure action various incriminating documents, representing alleged unaccounted transactions, unaccounted expenses, undisclosed cash investments, etc., were noticed. The Ld. AO made additions on the basis of the documents and evidences recovered during the course of search and seizure operation. An important feature of these cases is that the father of the assessee Shri Sunil Kumar Singh was also covered during the course of search and it is mentioned that a number of additions made in the hands of Shri Sunil Kumar Singh (father) were on account of transactions with the assessee (Son). In the father’s case the AO had observed that the credits appearing in the bank account of Shri Sunil Kumar Singh were credits received from the present assessee. Needless to say, substantial additions were made in the hands of both the father and the son. It needs to be emphasized that the string of impugned transactions are by and large interlinked between father and son. The Ld. AO is seen to have made additions in the hands of the assessee based on material found against him.
It is seen that the aggrieved assessee approached the Ld. CIT(A) for all the years under consideration but there he did not respond to the notices issued from time to time. At this stage, the following passage from the Ld. CIT(A)’s order in ITA No.5942/Del/2026 deserves to be extracted as under: -
“3.During the appellate proceedings, it is seen that after filing appeal in 2022, the appellant is not filing any submissions in response to various notices and seeking adjournments since last year and thus, the matter is accordingly being decided on merits of the issue based on material available on record. As per Form No.35, the appellant has requested to admit additional evidence u/s 46A in the form of ITR u/s 153A filed post search. The additional evidences under Rule 46A cannot be entertained as it is evident from the perusal of assessment details that the appellant was provided full opportunity of being heard before the AO and was also not prevented by any sufficient cause for not presenting any additional documents during the assessment proceedings. Moreover, the AO has considered all submissions furnished during assessment proceedings and hence, no justification for making any separate request for considering the additional evidence in the form of ITR filed is found. Hence, this contention is rejected as infructuous.” [Emphasis added]
Further aggrieved the assessee approached the ITAT with grounds challenging the additions. Since the grounds are extremely lengthy and argumentative hence, they are not being reproduced here. Suffice it to say that the action of Ld. CIT(A) in confirming the additions made by the Ld. AO, not giving sufficient opportunity of being heard and also not admitting new evidence under Rule 46A, has been assailed. Before us, the Ld. AR argued with the help of a short paper book and placed on record an order of coordinate bench of ITAT in the case of the father of the assessee (Sunil Kumar Singh) bearing IT(SS)A Nos. 2571/Del/2026 (AY 2015-16), 2518/Del/2026 (AY 2016-17), 2519/Del/2026 (AY 2017-18), 2520/Del/2026 (AY 2018-19), 2521/Del/2026 (AY 2019-20), 2522/Del/2026 (AY 2020-21) and 2523/Del/2026 (AY 2021-22), order dated 13.07.2026. It was the submission that the case of the father, Shri Sunil Kumar Singh has been remanded back to the file of Ld. AO with the following observations: -
“13.In view of the above facts and circumstances, we find force in the arguments of the Ld. AR and deem it expedient in the interest of justice that the matter be restored to the file of the AO who shall consider the additional evidence submitted by the assessee as per Form 35 before the Ld. CIT(A) under Rule 46A of the Act. The AO shall consider the same as per law and the legal precedents settled therein. The impugned order is accordingly set aside. ----------
14.Since, the factual matrix and the decision of the Ld. CIT(A) is identical and similar in this appeal vis-à-vis IT(SS)A No.2517/Del/2026, hence, the findings of the Tribunal in IT(SS)A No.2517/Del/2026 shall apply mutatis mutandis in IT(SS)A Nos. 2518 to 2523/Del/2026 for AYs 2016-17 to 2021-22 also.” It was the submission that since the transactions are interlinked hence the present matters should also be remanded back to the file of Ld. AO. It was also averred that there has been denial of natural justice to the extent that neither was appropriate opportunity given at first appellate stage and also fresh evidence filed was declined for admission.
The Ld. DR relied on the orders of the authorities below and stated that the additions made in the case of the assessee would need to be dealt with separately and requested the ITAT Bench to pass orders on merits in this assessee’s case.
We have considered the rival submissions and have gone through the record before us. We have also carefully perused the documents filed through a paper book and we have also gone through the coordinate bench order in the case of the assessee’s father (Sunil Kumar Singh-supra). It is clear that the transactions treated adversely in the case of the assessee’s father are intrinsically linked with the assessee. Since all the cases of the father Shri Sunil Kumar Singh have been remanded back to the file of Ld. AO, we deem it fit to do the same in the case of the assessee for all the year under consideration at present. For this purpose, we set aside the impugned order and remit the same back to the file of Ld. AO for fresh assessment.
This decision in ITA 5942 shall apply, mutatis-mutandis, to all the other appeals and even they are all remitted back to the file of Ld. AO, for fresh adjudication, after the impugned orders are set aside.
In the result, the appeal is partly allowed for statistical purposes.