The Kerala High Court dismissed a writ petition as notice of assessment order communicated via email given to the Income Tax Department for communication purposes.
The present writ petition has been filed by the petitioner who is an assessee under the provisions of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Against the assessment orders for the assessment years 2011-12 to 2014-15, the petitioner had filed appeals.
The only ground which has been taken in the writ petition is that the petitioner was not afforded an opportunity of hearing and no communication for hearing was sent to the petitioner by the appellate authority before passing the impugned orders on petitioner’s appeals against the assessment orders.
It was further stated that the latest e-mail id given by the petitioner at the time of filing of appeal against the assessment order for the assessment year 2017-18 is ‘middleeast132@gmail.com’. The petitioner has been issued notices of hearing on the latest e-mail id as well as another e-mail id i.e. shamafcetmr @yahoo.com which is the latest e-mail id given in on the return for the latest assessment year and notices have been sent on the said e-mail id.
Latha K., Counsel for the petitioner however submitted that in the returns the petitioner had given the e-mail id ‘jayson@sajuandco.com’ and no communication has been sent on the said e-mail id to the petitioner. The e-mail id ‘middleeast132@gmail.com’ is only given in the appeal filed against the assessment order for the assessment year 2017-18 and that appeal is still pending for consideration.
A Single Bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Singh observed that “The petitioner had received the communications in respect of the appeal against the assessment order for the assessment year 2017-18 on the e-mail ‘middleeast132@gmail.com’ and petitioner has also submitted response to the communication sent by the Department.”
“Therefore, I am of the view that when the petitioner himself has given multiple e-mail ids and petitioner has responded to the notice issued on e-mail id ‘middleeast132@gmail.com’ on which the several communications for hearing of the appeal were issued, I find the stand of the petitioner not tenable and, therefore, the writ petition is dismissed” the Bench noted.
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