Income Tax Appeal Notice in wrong email: Kerala HC directs regular updation of e-mail Id's by Income Tax Dept [Read Order]

In a recent judgement, the Kerala High Court pointed out the necessity of evolving a new method of regular updation of e-mail id's by the Income Tax Department. The Court set aside the order passed as the notice on hearing of income tax appeal issued in the wrong email id.

The petitioner, Mr Sham Basheer was aggrieved by the judgment of the Single Judge dismissing the Writ Petition. The assessee challenged a series of orders whereby the appeal filed by the appellant against assessment orders for the assessment years 2011-2012 to 2014-2015 was dismissed by the Appellate Authority.

It was pointed out that the appellant had given as many as five e-mail ids to the Department, and the latest e-mail id given by the appellant at the time of filing the appeal against the assessment order for the year 2017-2018 was the one to which the notices of hearing had been sent by the Department.

The respondent contended that the appellant could not be heard to say that there was no communication of the notices of hearing to it. The Single Judge found force in the stand taken by the respondents and held that since the communication in respect of the hearing of the appeal had been sent to the e-mail id indicated in the appeal against the assessment order for 2017-2018, it had to be seen as sufficient for complying with the rules of natural justice as far as the appellant herein was concerned. The Writ Petition was dismissed.

Smt. Latha K, the counsel for the appellant submitted that the e-mail to which the communications were addressed by the respondents belonged to an erstwhile employee of the appellant who had since left the service of the appellant. It was pointed out that it was under these circumstances that different e-mail ids had been indicated in the appeals filed for various assessment years and an indication given in the formats of those appeals that it would be preferable that the notices in connection with the hearing were sent by post.

The Standing counsel for the respondents argued that the statutory provisions enable the Income Tax Department to serve notice to an assessee through e-mail, and hence, it may not be proper for an assessee to insist on service of notice by post.

Since the communications to the appellant were not in the addresses indicated in the appeal memorandum, the division bench comprising Dr Justice A K Jayasankaran Nambiar & Dr Justice Kauser Edappagath set aside the orders impugned in the Writ Petition and directed the Appellate Authority to issue a fresh notice of hearing in respect of the various appeals (assessment years 2011-2012 to 2014 to 2015) in the e-mail address afcetmr@gmail.com and thereafter, pass final orders in the appeal, after hearing the appellant or his authorised representatives in the matter.

The court pointed out that the Department should evolve a procedure whereby the e-mails id's furnished by the assessees are regularly updated after confirmation with the assessee so that at any given point in time, an assessee can only insist upon a maximum of three e-mail ids to which communications intended for him may be addressed.

To Read the full text of the Order CLICK HERE

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