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Judgment
O R D E R
PER SANJAY AWASTHI, ACCOUNTANT MEMBER:
The ITAT Registry has reported that the present appeal is time barred by 882 days. It is seen that the assessee has filed an application requesting for condonation of delay as under: -
“MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HONOURS, In the aforesaid matter, the appellant is filing an appeal with humble request to condone the delay of more than 29 months. In this relation, appellant begs to submit as under:
2.At the outset, it is submitted that appeal was due to be filed on 04.08.2023, however as the appellant was suffering from multiple health ailments including Diabetes, Hypertension, Kidney which caused steep deterioration in his health and Cardiac problems he had to underwent Bypass Surgery in April, 2025. Consequently, the appellant could not keep track of his tax affairs and appeal filing escaped his attention.
3.It was in January 2026, when his health condition improved, he approached Shri Praveen Kumar Bansal, Chartered Accountant at Saharanpur for the filing of appeal who in turn referred the appellant to approach Shri Sanjay Kumar, Chartered Accountant at Delhi.
4.Thereafter a meeting was fixed with Shri Sanjay Kumar, Chartered Accountant on 14.01.2026 at Delhi who advised immediate filing of appeal with a petition for condonation of delay and also advised that the Hon'ble Tribunal had the discretion to condone the delay in filing of appeal in deserving case and considering the medical history of the appellant, it is likely that the Hon'ble ITAT shall condone the delay.
5.Under the circumstances as aforesaid, which were beyond the control of appellant-assessee the appeal could not be filed in time. Appellant have been advised to submit that it is a fit case where delay in filing the appeal deserves to be condoned. Accordingly, we are submitting herewith our appeal with this petition for condonation of delay.
PRAYER
6.It is respectfully prayed that in view of the facts and circumstances of the case as have been narrated above, your Honour be pleased -
(a)to condone the delay in filing the appeal; and
(b)to grant such relief as may be found to be admissible under law and equity.
Respectfully submitted;
For Tariq Athar
Sd/-
Assessee”
Considering the reasons given in this application, we hereby condone the delay and admit this appeal for adjudication.
It is seen that this appeal arises from order dated 05.06.2023, passed u/s 250 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereafter as “the Act”), by NFAC, Delhi. In this case, the AO vide order dated 27.12.2016 passed an ex parte order u/s 144 of the Act. It is seen that even before the Ld. CIT(A) the assessee did not respond to the notices fixing the case for hearing. Thereafter, the Ld. CIT(A) dismissed the assessee’s appeal largely on the ground of lack of persuasion. It needs to be mentioned that the merit of the matter has also been discussed, albeit in a cryptic manner.
Further aggrieved the assessee has approached the ITAT with grounds which challenge the ex parte orders and raise other issues on merit as well.
Before us the Ld.AR stated that the assessee was not too well versed with tax matters and hence was not able to understand the gravity of the situation. It was the prayer that another chance may be given for presenting the facts.
The Ld. DR opposed the remanding back of this order on the ground that the assessee appeared to be a habitual defaulter and was taking the proceedings before various authorities very lightly.
We have considered the rival submissions and have gone through the records before us. It is seen that indeed the assessee has been extremely careless in terms of his responsibilities regarding taxation matters. However, in the interests of justice, we deemed it fit to set aside the impugned order and remand this matter back to the file of Ld. CIT(A) for fresh adjudication. We may mention that in case the assessee is not forthcoming with the necessary details then the Ld. CIT(A) would be at liberty to pass any order as deemed fit.
In the result, the appeal is partly allowed for statistical purposes.