The Pune bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal ruled that an assessment order lacking the Document Identification Number (DIN) within the body of the order violates the Circular of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and will be considered invalid.
The assessee, a taxpayer, without going into merits of the case, at the outset had raised an oral legal ground challenging the very validity of the assessment issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes for the Revenue
The counsel for the Revenue objecting the admission of oral legal ground, vehemently submitted that, the order of assessment indeed bears the DCR No. 85/61 2019-20 and thus corresponding Document Identification Number must have been generated in compliance with the CBDT Circular (supra).
It was further capitulated that, aforestated CBDT circular came into force w.e.f. 01/10/2019 whereas the assessment order was passed on 30/10/2019 and as such in the initial transition period the department was instructed to maintained parallel manual records in addition to computerised records.
After hearing both the parties the tribunal was satisfied that, the omission to raise aforestated legal ground while filing the memorandum of appeal in the extant case was neither wilful nor unreasonable.
The tribunal noted that in order prevent manual practice of issuance of notice, order, summons, letter or any other correspondence and to maintain proper audit trail of all communication the CBDT in exercise of its power under Section 119 of the Income Tax Act, has mandated the income tax authority w.e.f. 01/10/2019 for generation, allotment and communication of computer generated DIN in relation to any assessment, appeals, orders, statutory or otherwise, investigation, verification of information, penalty, etc.
Albeit para 2 of aforestated circular mandates for DIN compliance, para 3 thereof provides for five exceptional circumstances wherein manual communication is permitted without initially complying with the DIN requirement, however subject to regularisation within a period of 15 working days of such manual issuance.
In the light of the legal position, the tribunal noted that, the assessment order bears no DIN in the body thereof, thus the assessment order undisputedly was communicated in violation of Para-2 of CBDT Circular. Further, the Revenue also failed to bring on record any evidence effectively showcasing that the case of the assessee falls within any of the five exceptional circumstances.
The two bench members consisting of S. S. Viswanethra Ravi (Judicial Member) & G. D. Padmashali (Accountant Member) held that the assessment order is to be treated as never been issued, therefore ceases to have any effect in the eyes of law. In view of this categorical finding, delving deeper into merits of the case is unwarranted.Hence the appeal was allowed.
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