The Delhi High Court directed the Income Tax Commissioner to process the application filed under Vivad Se Vishwas Act, 2020.
The petitioner, Shyam Sunder Sethi had filed his income-tax return concerning the assessment year 2011-2012. In the return, the petitioner had declared his income as Rs.49,32,900. The petitioner avers that in the said income-tax return, exemption had been claimed under Section 54 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 and accordingly against “capital gains”, the amount shown was Nil.
In the reassessment proceedings, the exemption claimed by the petitioner under Section 54 of the 1961 Act was disallowed and the petitioner‟s income was recomputed. The income was, accordingly, assessed at Rs.3,08,94,767 and the order was passed.
The petitioner preferred an appeal with CIT(A). The appeal along with the condonation of delay application was filed. Pertinently, the appeal was filed in the prescribed format which contained a provision for setting out the grounds for condonation of delay for cases where the appeal was not instituted within the stipulated time frame.
Meanwhile the Finance Bill, 2020 was introduced in the Parliament via the said Finance Bill, the Vivad Se Vishwas Scheme was introduced to resolve the pending disputes concerning income-tax payable by the assessees. The Rajiv petitioner avers that it was, perhaps, in this background that he was sent an intimation by respondent whereby he was informed that he could avail of the benefits under the 2020 Act.
The forms having been filed, the petitioner followed it with a request, made to respondent, that the said forms be processed under the 2020 Act.
Surprisingly, the petitioner appears to have received a letter from the Grievance Committee which inter alia indicated that the grievance articulated by him stood “fully resolved”.
The respondent had, via communication raised an issue that the condonation of delay letter had not been filed with respondent, the petitioner submitted a communication, through his attorney wherein, he averred that the appeal and the condonation of delay application had been filed with respondent.
The division bench of Justice Rajiv Shakdher and Justice Talwant Singh held that the order of rejection of application is bad in law. It is, accordingly, set aside. Respondent authority is directed to process the forms filed by the petitioner, i.e., Forms 1 and 2 under the provisions of the Vivad Se Vishwas Act, 2020.
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