The Hyderabad Bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), dismissed an appeal stating lapse of more than 2 years to substitute the name of legal heirs for the deceased assessee.
In the present case, the assessee, Kabeer Khan died on 31/03/2021 and more than 2 years have passed from the death of the assessee till today and no steps have been taken by the legal heirs to substitute their names. In general law i.e. Civil Procedure Code, the limitation to substitute for impleading the legal heir in the suite has been provided as 90 days.
It is the settled proposition of law that no appeal can be continued/prosecuted or filed in the name of a dead person. It is incumbent upon the legal heirs in the present case to substitute their names in place of the diseased assessee.
Rule 26 of the ITAT Rules, 1963 reads as “Where an assesses whether he be the appellant or the respondent to an appeal dies or is adjudicated insolvent or in the case of a company is being wound-up, the appeal shall not abate and may, if the assessee was the appellant, be continued by, and if he was the respondent be continued against, the executor, administrator or other legal representative of the assessee or by or against the assignee, receiver or liquidator, as the case may be”
The Proviso to Rules 26 of the ITAT Rules states that (i) The assessee files a revised Form No.36 duly filled up giving revised name of the party duly verified in the same manner as required by rule 47 of the I.T. Rules, 1962. (ii) The revised form No.36 shall specify the appeal number as originally assigned or, in the event of non-availability of such number on the date of filing the appeal shall be mentioned in the covering letter to enable the Registrar to place fresh Form No.36 in the original file”
The Coram comprising R.K. Panda, Accountant Member and Laliet Kumar, Judicial Member noted that “Since the legal heirs of the diseased assessee in the instant case have not taken any steps to file the revised Form No.36, duly filled up giving the revised name of the party duly verified in the manner as prescribed in the rules, therefore, the present appeal cannot be proceeded with in the absence of any of the above said requisite information/form.”
The Bench dismissed the appeal on the ground that despite a lapse of more than 2 years, the names of the legal heirs have not been substituted.
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