Failure to justify Genuine Reason for Delay in filing Appeal before Appellate Authority: ITAT denies Condonation for Delay [Read Order]

The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) Raipur bench, while rejecting the delay petition for condonation, held that the assessee failed to justify the genuine reason for the delay in filing the appeal before the appellate tribunal.

Assessee Suresh Kumar Gupta had e-filed his return of income for the Assessment Year 2013-14 on 30.09.2013, declaring an income of Rs. 8,66,360/-. Subsequently, the case of the assessee was selected for scrutiny assessment under Section 143(2) of the Income Tax Act. Accordingly, the AO passed an assessment order by making various disallowances and additions.

Aggrieved by the order, the assessee filed an appeal before the CIT(A), who dismissed the appeal of the assessee due to failure to appear before the CIT(A). Thereafter, the assessee filed an appeal against the CIT(A) order before the tribunal.

Prafulla Pendse, Counsel for the assessee, argued that there is a delay of 191 days involved in filing the captioned appeals. The reason for the delay was that requisite Form No.26A could not be obtained by the assessee from the payee companies viz. (i) Magma Fincorp Ltd. and (ii) Religare Finvest Ltd. Thus, the delay involved in filing the captioned appeals had crept in because of bona fide reasons.

Satya Prakash Sharma, Counsel for Revenue, submitted that the delay involved in filing the captioned appeal of 191 days was clearly an inordinate delay with no justifiable reasons; therefore, the appeals filed by the assessee were liable to be dismissed.

It was observed by the tribunal that the reasons given by the assessee for seeking condonation of the delay involved in the appeals, i.e., failure on his part to collect the requisite certificates in Form No.26A from the respective payees, does not inspire any confidence. Further, the assessee had adopted a lackadaisical approach and callous conduct while preferring the appeals before the Tribunal. Therefore, the bench said that “The assessee has not given any genuine reason for the delay in filing of the captioned appeals either in his application seeking condonation of delay and the affidavits filed before me or in the course of the hearing of the appeals.”

After considering the facts submitted and circumstances, the single-member bench of Ravish Sood (Judicial Member) dismissed the appeal of the assessee and held that there was no substance in the claim of the assessee that the delay involved in filing the present appeals was due to bona fide reasons.

To Read the full text of the Order CLICK HERE

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