Sudha Kapoor vs ITO, Ward 49 (1)

PER S.RIFAUR RAHMAN,AM:

The assessee has filed appeal against the order of the Learned Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals)/National Faceless Appeal Centre (NFAC), Delhi [“Ld. CIT(A)”, for short] dated 13.10.2025 for the Assessment Year 2017-18.

At the outset, it was submitted by the ld. AR for the assessee that Assessing Officer has passed the assessment order under section 147 r.w.s. 144 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (for short ‘the Act’) without giving proper opportunity to the assessee. He further submitted that there was a delay of 117 days in filing the appeal before the ld. CIT(A) and ld. CIT (A) dismissed the appeal without condoning the delay. He submitted that ld. CIT (A) ought to have dealt with the grounds of appeal substantively even if the delay was not condoned or at least provided a detailed finding on the sufficiency of the cause of delay. He submitted that there are reasons for assessee for not appearing before the first appellate authority. Accordingly, he prayed that this issue may be remitted back to AO, with the prayer to give an opportunity of being heard to the assessee.

Ld. DR relied upon the order of the authorities below.

Considered the rival submissions and perused the material on record. Upon careful consideration, we are of the considered view that in the interest of justice, the matter requires denovo assessment. Therefore, we remit back the issues to the file of the Assessing Officer with the directions to decide the same afresh, after giving adequate opportunity of being heard to the assessee, for which Ld. DR has no objection. Assessee is directed through his counsel to fully cooperate with the AO during the proceedings. We hold and direct accordingly.

In the result, the appeal filed by the assessee is allowed for statistical purposes.