TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2017 (12) TMI 425
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....the Constitution of India is to the two similar orders dated 12th November, 2014 passed by the Commissioner of Income Tax on the applications made by the petitioner assessee under Section 264 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (for short "the said Act"). 3. Writ Petition No. 6287 of 2015 relates to the Assessment year 2007-08 and Writ Petition No. 8955 of 2015 relates to the Assessment year 2008-09. 4. The finding recorded in the impugned orders by the Commissioner is that delay in filing the applications under Section 264 of the Income Tax Act cannot be condoned and therefore, he proceeded to dismiss the Revision Applications. As the impugned orders are more or less identical, for the sake of convenience, we are referring to the impugned order ....
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....n which he otherwise came to know of it, whichever is earlier: Provided that the Commissioner may, if he is satisfied that the assessee was prevented by sufficient cause from making the application within that period, admit an application made after the expiry of that period." 8. Thus proviso to subsection (3) of Section 264 clearly confers a power on the Revisional Authority to condone the delay, provided sufficient cause is made out. 9. The Revision Application was filed by the petitioner on 20th March, 2014 for challenging the order of Assessment dated 21st December,2009. In the Revision Application, a reference is made to Section 80IB( 10) as amended with effect from 18th April, 2005. After referring to the said provisions, it is sta....
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....uire each and every day's delay to be explained. The Commissioner has made a reference to a decision of the Apex Court in the case of Collector, Land Acquisition vs. Mst. Katiji & Others (SC) 167 Itr 471 . However, the Commissioner has ignored the ratio of the said decision. In paragraph 4 of the said decision, the Apex Court has held thus : "4. And such a liberal approach is adopted on principle as it is realized that : 1. Ordinarily, a litigant does not stand to benefit by lodging an appeal late. 2. Refusing to condone delay can result in a meritorious matter being thrown out at the very threshold and cause of justice being defeated. As against this, when delay is condoned, the highest that can happen is that a cause would be ....
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....r has misdirected himself by going into the question whether the petitioners could have made the claim. The question of going into maintainability of the claim made by the petitioners could have been gone into on merits, only if the delay was condoned. As stated earlier, the learned Commissioner has referred to the decision of Collector Land Acquisition (supra). But we find that the ratio of the said decision has been completely ignored. 14. Therefore, the delay ought to have been condoned by the Commissioner by invoking the power under the proviso to Sub-Section 3 of Section 264 of the Income Tax Act. As far as the merits are concerned, both the learned Counsel for the petitioners and respondent tried to contend that there is an adjudicat....