The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) at Delhi recently clarified that the time of uploading the Order by the Dispute Resolution Panel (DRP) onto the Income Tax Business Application ( ITBA ) Portal is to be deemed as the ‘time of dispatch’ of the Order towards the concerned Assessee.
The Petitioner Hyundai Rotem is the manufacturing offshoot of South-Korean Hyundai Motor Group and is engaged in the production of all kinds of railway vehicles such as electric multiple units, high speed trains, light rail vehicles, locomotives and passenger coaches, car manufacturing systems and environment plants.
Law and Procedure for Filing of Appeals
Hyundai Rotem’s return of income declaring a total income of Rs. 13,64,92,120/- was selected for scrutiny through Computer-Assisted Scrutiny Selection (CASS). Subsequently, the jurisdictional Assessing Officer (AO) passed an assessment order estimating the Petitioner’s income at Rs.21,01,26,630/-, which has been disputed through the present appeal.
Ananya Kapoor, appearing for the Assessee submitted before ITAT that the impugned assessment order has been passed by the AO without requisite jurisdiction, thus making it illegal, bad in law and barred by time limitation.
Law and Procedure for Filing of Appeals
Z H Tanweer, appearing for the Department, averred that manual orders uploaded by the DRP are not visible in the assessment worklist of the AO and hence the AO was not notified about the addition in the ITBA portal, having received the order physically only on 01.06.2022.
The ITAT Bench composed by M. Balaganesh, Accountant Member And Shri Vimal Kumar, Judicial Member, observed that a cohesive reading of Section 130 and 144B of the Act read together with Section 13 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 indicates that dispatch by the DRP is deemed to be complete the moment the concerned document is uploaded by the DRP onto the ITBA Portal.
Law and Procedure for Filing of Appeals
The Bench further averred that the retention of the order document by National e-Assessment Centre (NeAC) for a couple of months before being physically passed on to the Assessment Officer does not automatically extend the time limit for framing of the final order.
Reiterating that the DRP order had been uploaded onto the ITBA portal on 26.05.2022, the ITAT ruled that the AO was liable to complete the Assessment before 30.06.2022 according to Section 144C(13) of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Owing to the AO’s delay in completing assessment within the statutory time limit, the Delhi Income Tax Appellate Tribunal proceeded to set aside the impugned assessment order.
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