2018 (4) TMI 256

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....the business of transmission of electricity. The assessee company has filed its return of income on 27.09.2013 based on unaudited books of accounts which was subsequently revised on 16.09.2014 on the basis of audited books of accounts. In its original return of income, the assessee company has reported NIL income which was revised to a loss of Rs. 473,37,51,392/- as per the revised return of income which was accepted during the assessment proceedings except for an amount of Rs. 4,80,494/- in respect of interest on income tax refund which was brought to tax under the head "income from other sources". During the course of assessment proceedings, on perusal of Form No. 3CA, the Assessing Officer noticed that the statutory audit of the assessee....

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....ble to the Assessing Officer. It was accordingly held that the assessee company has breached the provisions of section 44AB without any reasonable cause. Hence, penalty amounting to Rs. 1.5 lakh was imposed on the assessee company. 4. Against the said levy of penalty, the assessee company filed an appeal before the ld. CIT(A). The ld CIT(A) held that the reasons submitted by the assessee company for the delay in getting its accounts audited and submitting the audit report before the specified due date are not backed by evidence. It was further held by the ld CIT(A) that the statutory auditors not agreeing to the audit fees and resultant delay is not a plausible reason. It was held by the ld CIT(A) that efforts should have made in time to g....

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....y in the statutory audit is because of the fault of the assessee. Thus, delay in obtaining the tax audit report is because of a reasonable cause as envisaged u/s 273B and therefore, the penalty levied u/s 271B be deleted. 5.1 The Ld. CIT(A) has confirmed the levy of penalty only on the ground that the reasons forwarded by the assessee are not backed by evidence ignoring that all these dates are mentioned in the printed Balance Sheet available on the record of AO. The further observation of Ld. CIT(A) that statutory auditor have not agreed to the audit fees and hence, there is a delay is not the claim of assessee as is evident from the submission extracted at Para 2.2 of the order. Thus, Ld. CIT(A) has confirmed the levy of penalty without ....