In an assessee friendly judgment, the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), Mumbai bench restored the matter to the file of Commissioner of Income Tax (CIT) for fresh adjudication on the ground that the assessee has preferred manual filing of appeal due to lack of awareness regarding E- filing procedures.
The ground raised by the assessee,M/s Pamstar Exports is that the CIT(A) has erred in dismissing the appeal of the assessee on the ground that appeal was filed by the assessee manually and not electronically without appreciating the fact that the assessee had duly filed the appeal within due date of statutory time limit and this was being the first year of the transition to the new system and assessee was not aware of the new procedure.
The Counsel for the assessee,SuchekAnchaliyasubmitted that assessee had filed the appeal manually within time before the CIT(A) and the Commissioner had conducted multiple hearing and the assessee had duly participated in the same both physically and E- portal and also a detail enquiry and hearing had already been done. However,CIT(A) without confronting it to the assessee has simply dismissed the appeal on the ground that assessee has not filed the appeal electronically and held that assessee was bound toE-file the appeal instead of filing on paper form. Thus, he submitted that this matter should be remitted back to the file ofCIT (A) for deciding afresh.
On the other hand, Counsel for the Revenue, Praveen Shekhardid not have any objection if the matter is remanded back to the file of CIT(A) for deciding the matter afresh.
The Bench consisting of Amit Shukla, Judicial Member and Prashant Maharshi, Accountant Member held that “Admittedly, the scheme of physical filing of appeal was replaced by electronic /online w.e.f. 01.03.2016 vide rule 45 of the Income Tax Rules. Since there was some difficulty in e-filing, CBDT has taken due cognizance of such difficulty and extended the time limit vide its circular. Thus, CIT(A) should have accepted the appeal and decided the appeal on merits when already multiple hearing have taken place. Accordingly, the appeal of the assessee is remanded back to the file of CIT(A) to decide the issue afresh on merits after giving sufficient opportunity of hearing to the assessee.”
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