ITAT held that repeated non-compliances of multiple notices...

ITAT held that repeated non-compliances of multiple notices issued u/s 142(1) on the same subject constitute a single default for purposes of penalty u/s 271(1)(b). Accepting the assessee's plea, the Tribunal ruled that successive notices seeking identical information do not multiply the default. Applying s. 273B, it upheld penalty only for the first non-compliance and deleted penalty for the remaining four instances. The penalty was thus restricted to Rs. 10,000 for one default instead of five, and the assessee's appeal was partly allowed.