Dismissal of Appeal for want of E-Filing is justified considering Non-Serious Attitude of Assessee: ITAT [Read Order]

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The Delhi bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has upheld the order of the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) rejecting the appeal memo filed by the assessee since e-filing was not done due to non-serious attitude of the assessee.

The assessee failed to file the appeal in electronic format before the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) despite getting sufficient opportunity to do so and expressed their willingness to file the appeal in the paper. The assessee even approached the High Court requesting the same where the Court observed that the assessee company did not file returns and did not appear before the assessing officer and resisted all opportunities before the CIT appeal to file an appeal in electronic format. Therefore, the appeal was dismissed for non-prosecution.

While considering the second appeal by the assessee, the Tribunal noted that even the application for restoration was also filed after two years.

“All these facts show that despite fighting all the court cases at various forums, the assessee did not find adequate time and method to file an appeal in electronic format. The assessee has given an email dated 17 April 2018 received from the E-filing helpdesk which has given the assessee adequate guidance for filing the appeal. On 3 July 2019, the assessee wrote a letter to the income tax officer for the restoration of login. What happened after 30 July 2019, whether assessee approached the income tax officer by attending his office and requesting him to grant the login or assessee approach the CPC or not is known. Seriously, in this case, the efforts of the assessee in pursuing this appeal are wanting. What are the efforts the assessee made after writing this letter to the assessing officer were not at all placed before us. Even otherwise looking to the series of correspondence placed before us, each time assessee approached the income tax authorities after a considerable lag of time. This itself shows that assessee is not serious in pursuing this appeal. In view of this, we do not find any infirmity in the order of the learned CIT – A to the extent in not acceding request of the assessee to consider an appeal filed in paper format. Even otherwise, he is not authorized to do so. Therefore, the appeal is dismissed,” the Tribunal said.

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