The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal ( ITAT ), Mumbai bench directed the deposit cost of Rs 51,000/- in Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund( PMNRF ) within the 30 days due to delay in filing appeal before the Income Tax Department.
The assessee, General Life Science Distributors assessment order was passed under section 144 read with section 147 of the Income Tax Act , against which the Assessee though preferred its appeal by e-filing, mode on 21/12/2022, however, inspite of affording various opportunities of being heard by the Commissioner, neither appeared nor substantiated the delay of approximately 33 months in filing the appeal before the Commissioner.
The Commissioner in the constrained circumstances and in the absence of substantive material and / or reasonable cause, which the Assessee has failed to establish, dismissed the appeal of the Assessee in limine on the point of limitation
The Assessing Officer invoked the provisions of section 14A stating that the assessee has not discharged the onus of evidencing the source of investment is from own funds. Accordingly the assessing officer made a disallowance of Rs.458.866 crores towards interest paid and Rs.17.37 crores towards administration expenses after adjusting the suo moto disallowance made by the assessee
Aggrieved, the assessee filed further appeal before the tribunal.
During the proceedings,Counsel for assesee argued that main Director/shareholder Mr. Jacob Sporon Fielder, who was operating the Assessee company, in fact, was entangled in various litigations including detention in the jurisdiction of United Kingdom from March, 2018 to October, 2021 and, therefore, could not pursue the assessment proceedings, which resulted into passing the assessment order dated 27/12/2019 as ex-parte under section 144 read with section 147 of the Act.
After he returned to India in October,2021, it took some time to take stock of various proceedings and the legal remedies to be pursued. Thereafter the appeal was filed electronically on 22/12/2022 along with an application for condonation of delay
The tribunal observed that the assessment order dated 27/12/2019 was passed as ex-parte U/s 144 read with section 147 of the Act and thereafter from March 2020 onwards Covid-19 period was started and Apex Court excluded the period from March 15, 2020 to February 28, 2022 while computing the period of limitation for filing of any suit, appeal, application, or proceeding.Thus it was determined that Commissioner decided the appeal filed by the Assessee in limine but not on merit;Therefore the claim of the Assessee seems to be genuine .
After reviewing the facts and records, the two-member bench Of Padmavathy S ( Accountant member ) and Amit Shukla,( Judicial Member ) remand the issue to the file of commissioner and directed the deposit cost of Rs 51,000/- in Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund( PMNRF ) within the 30 days
Devendra Jain, counsel appeared for assessee and Harshad S. Vengurkar counsel appeared for revenue
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