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Judgment
Per Raj Kumar Chauhan, Judicial Member:
The appeal of the assessee is directed against the order dated 18.12.2025 of Id. CIT(A)/NFAC, Delhi passed u/s 250 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') wherein the appeal was dismissed on account of refusal to condone the delay of 124 days in filing the appeal.
At the time of hearing, Id. AR for the assessee submitted that Ld. CIT(A) has dismissed the appeal of the assessee on account of limitation. However, the assessee filed the application for condonation of delay before the Ld. CIT(A) stating that a reasonable cause has been showing that the assessee in filing the belated appeal, but the Id. CIT(A) was not satisfied with the explanation given for the delay and concluded that the assessee/appellant has failed to show sufficient cause for condonation of delay and accordingly the appeal was dismissed. Therefore, Id. AR for the assessee requested to condone the delay of 124 days and remit back the issues to the file of the Id. CIT(A) for fresh adjudication, after giving adequate opportunity of being heard to the assessee.
Per contra, Ld. DR relied upon the orders of the authorities below and submitted that the no sufficient cause has been made out by the assessee for filing the belated appeal before the Id. CIT(A), hence, the Id. CIT(A) did not condone the delay in dispute and rightly dismissed the appeal of the assessee, which does not need any interference.
We have heard both the parties and perused the material available on record. We noticed that the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Collector, Land Acquisition Vs. MST. Katiji & Ors. (1987) 167 ITR 471 (SC), was pleased to hold regarding the condonation of delay as under:
"The Legislature has conferred the power to condone delay by enacting section 51 of the Limitation Act of 1963 in order to enable the courts to do substantial justice to parties by disposing of matters on de merits". The expression "sufficient cause" employed by the Legislature is adequately elastic to enable the courts to apply the law in a meaningful manner which subserves the ends of justice that being the life-purpose of the existence of the institution of courts. It is common knowledge that this court has been making of justifiably liberal approach in matters instituted in this court. But the message does not appear to have percolated down to all the other courts in the hierarchy.
And such a liberal approach is adopted on principle as it is realized that:
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 of justice being defeated. As against this, when delay is condoned, the highest that can happen is that a cause would be decided on merits after hearing the parties."
It is an admitted fact that the delay of 124 days was not condoned by the Id. CIT(A) and thus the appeal of the assessee was dismissed being not admitted by the Id. CIT(A).
We now proceed to extract the explanation seeking condonation of delay before the first appellate authority which find mentions in para 7.2 at page 22, extracted below as under:
PETITION FOR CONDONATION OF DELAY IN FILING THE APPEAL AGAINST ASSESSMENT ORDER
BEFORE THE HON'BLE COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX (APPEALS)
IN THE MATTER OF RAVISH GUPTA (PAN: AOGPG0510B) FOR ASSESSMENT YEAR 2022-23
I, Ravish Gupta, s/o Shri Ashok Kumar Gupta, r/o House No. F-5 Street No.3, Chander Nagar, Krishna Nagar, Delhi-110051, am fully conversant of the facts deposed below:
1.That I am the holder of PAN bearing AOGPG0510B.
2.That the assessment order u/s 144/144B for the Assessment Year 2022-23 was issued on 25.03.2024.
3.That I was not keeping medically fit since January, 2024 and was under the treatment of a medical practitioner and was advised bed rest.
4.That I am filing the appeal on 26.08.2024 and also request for condonation of delay.
5.That delay in filing the appeal is because of medical reasons which are beyond my control.
VERIFICATION
I, Ravish Gupta, the above-named deponent do hereby verify that the contents of this memorandum of appeal from paras 1 to 4 are true to the best of my knowledge and belief.
ATTESTED NOTARY PUBLIC, DELHI
26 AUG 2024
26 AUG 2024
It is settled law that the technicalities are hand-made of justice and the substantial rights of an assessee should not be defeated because of the technicalities. In our opinion, the explanation given by the assessee was sufficient cause for condoning the delay in filing the appeal as no contrary material is brought on record by the Revenue to the assertion made by the assessee regarding condoning the delay in filing the appeal.
In the given facts and circumstances and in view of the settled legal position, we are of the considered view that it was a fit case for condonation of delay because the explanation given by assessee before the Id. CIT(A) was sufficient and justified. For these reasons, the impugned appellate order is set aside. Hence, we deem it expedient to condone the delay in dispute and restore the matter back to the file of the Id. CIT(A) for deciding the issues afresh, after giving effective opportunities of hearing to the assessee. The assessee/appellant is directed to present its case within 60 days of passing of this order before the Ld. CIT(A).
In the result, the appeal of the assessee is allowed for statistical purposes.