TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2021 (7) TMI 1131
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....ing Officer and Hon'ble CIT(A) is against the provisions of law and liable to be quashed. 2. The appellant craves leave to add to, alter, modify, substantiate, delete and / or to rescind all or any of the grounds of appeal on or before the final hearing, if necessity so arises." 2. Briefly stated the facts necessary for adjudication of the controversy at hand are : assessee is a local body in the name and style of Sub Divisional Office Civil Panipat and was required to deduct and deposit TDS as per the provisions of Income Tax Act. Assessee has duly deducted and deposited TDS of Rs. 72,200/- for 1st Quarter of FY 2014-15 on salary to the credit of government and filed the TDS statement on 14.11.2015. Assessing Officer after processing the TDS statement raised a demand of Rs. 72,200/- by way of intimation u/s 200A of the Act vide order dated TDS/1415/24Q/D/100017191410, 27.11.2015 for delay in filing the TDS statement. 3. Assessee carried the matter before Ld. CIT(A) by way of filing the appeal who has confirmed the demand by dismissing the appeal. Feeling aggrieved the assessee has come up before the tribunal by way of filing the present appeal. 4. Assessee has....
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....th July, 2013 and the assessee filed the rectification application before the CPC and the order u/s 154 was passed on 6th February, 2019. The assessee has filed the appeal against the order passed u/s 154 on 26th February, 2019 which is well within the time. Even the ld.CIT(A) at para 4.2 of his order has also mentioned that the assessee has filed the appeal against the correction dated 6th February, 2019. However, the ld.CIT(A), without considering the facts properly, has held that there is inordinate delay in filing of the appeals before him and the assessee failed to submit explanation so as to justify the above delay for which he dismissed the appeals on account of delay in filing these appeals. In our opinion, there is no delay in the instant case and all these confusion arose because of some typographical error in the Form 35 where the assessee, instead of mentioning section 154, mentioned section 200A against the section and sub-section of the Income-tax Act, 1961. We, therefore, find merit in the argument of the ld. Counsel that there is no delay in filing of the above appeals. 23. Further, the Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of Remfry and Sons (supra....
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.....06.2015, no late filing fee could be charged u/s 234E of the Act, in the intimation issued u/s 200A of the Act. We find that the said issue has been adjudicated by the Hon'ble Karnataka High Court in Fatehraj Singhvi & Others vs Union of India (supra), which proposition has been applied by the Pune Bench of the Tribunal in Medical Superintendent Rural Hospital, DOBI BK vs DCIT (supra). The Tribunal had also taken note of the decision of Hon'ble Gujarat High Court in Rajesh Kourani vs Union of India (supra) and applying the proposition that where there was difference of opinion between Hon'ble High Courts on a particular issue and in the absence of any decision rendered by the Jurisdictional High Court, then the decision in favour of the assessee needs to be followed as held by Hon'ble Supreme Court in Vegetables Products Ltd. [1973] 88 ITR 192(SC). The relevant findings of the Tribunal are as under:- 11. "We have heard the rival contentions and perused the record. The issue arising in the present bunch of appeals is against levy of late filing fees under section 234E of the Act while issuing intimation under section 200A of the Act, in the first bunch of appeals. The seco....
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....A of the Act w.e.f. 01.06.2015 has prospective effect and is not applicable for the period of respective assessment years prior to 01.06.2015. The relevant findings of the Hon'ble High Court are in paras 21 and 22, which read as under:- "21. However, if Section 234E providing for fee was brought on the state book, keeping in view the aforesaid purpose and the intention then, the other mechanism provided for computation of fee and failure for payment of fee under Section 200A which has been brought about with effect from 1.6.2015 cannot be said as only by way of a regulatory mode or a regulatory mechanism but it can rather be termed as conferring substantive power upon the authority. It is true that, a regulatory mechanism by insertion of any provision made in the statute book, may have a retroactive character but, whether such provision provides for a mere regulatory mechanism or confers substantive power upon the authority would also be a aspect which may be required to be considered before such provisions is held to be retroactive in nature. Further, when any provision is inserted for liability to pay any tax or the fee by way of compensatory in nature or fee independent....
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....that the impugned notices under section 200A of the Act were for computation and intimation for payment of fees under section 234E of the Act as they relate for the period of tax deducted at source prior to 01.06.2015 were being set aside. 15. In other words, the Hon'ble High Court of Karnataka explained the position of charging of late filing fees under section 234E of the Act and the mechanism provided for computation of fees and failure for payment of fees under section 200A of the Act which was brought on Statute w.e.f. 01.06.2015. The said amendment was held to be prospective in nature and hence, notices issued under section 200A of the Act for computation and intimation for payment of late filing fees under section 234E of the Act relating to the period of tax deduction prior to 01.06.2015 were not maintainable and were set aside by the Hon'ble High Court. In view of said proposition being laid down by the Hon'ble High Court of Karnataka (supra), there is no merit in observations of CIT(A) that in the present case, where the returns of TDS were filed for each of the quarters after 1st day of June, 2015 and even the order charging late filing fees was passed after Jun....
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....Rashmikant Kundalia Vs. Union of India (2015) 54 taxmann.com 200 (Bom) had decided the constitutional validity of provisions of section 234E of the Act and had held them to be ultra vires but had not decided the second issue of amendment brought to section 200A of the Act w.e.f. 01.06.2015. In view thereof, respectfully following the ratio laid down by the Hon'ble High Court of Karnataka and Pune Bench of Tribunal in series of cases, we delete the late filing fees charged under section 234E of the Act for the TDS returns for the period prior to 01.06.2015. 18. Further before parting, we may also refer to the order of CIT(A) in the case of Junagade Healthcare Pvt. Ltd., where the CIT(A) had dismissed appeals of assessee being delayed for period of December, 2013 and July, 2014. The CIT(A) while computing delay had taken the date of intimation under section 200A of the Act as the basis, whereas the assessee had filed appeals before CIT(A) against the order passed under section 154 of the Act. The CIT(A) had noted that rectification application was filed in February, 2018 which was rejected by CPC on the same day. The CIT(A) was of the view that there was no merit in....
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....ed by TDS (CPC), it is noticed that the TDS in 26QB mentions date of filing of 'challan cum statement' as 5.4.2014, wherein late filing of 'challan cum statement' u/s 234E has been levied. The assessee had purchased the property on 6.12.2013 i.e., relevant to the assessment year 2014-15. Since assessee had purchased the property from eight sellers and the payment to each of the seller has been made separately for an amount of Rs. 41,87,500/- aggregating to Rs. 3,35,00,000/-, the assessee' contention has been that it was not required to deduct TDS, because the payments made to each seller was less than the prescribed limit of Rs. 50 lacs and therefore, provision of section 194IA was not applicable. The demand has been raised by the department u/s 200 in terms of failure to comply with Section 200A, which deals with the processing of statement of tax deducted at source u/s 200. First of all, sub section 3 of section 200 provides that the person deducting any sum in accordance with provision of chapter XVII shall after paying the tax deducted to the credit of the Central Government within the prescribed time, prepare such statement for such period as may be prescri....
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....only with effect from 1.6.2015 and hence, there was no authority or competence or jurisdiction on the part of the concerned Officer or the Department to compute and determine the fee under Section 234E in respect of the assessment year of the earlier period and the return filed for the said respective assessment years namely all assessment years and the returns prior to 1.6.2015. It was submitted that, when no express authority was conferred by the statute under Section 200A prior to 1.6.2015 for computation of any fee under Section 234E nor the determination thereof, the demand or the intimation for the previous period or previous year prior to 1.6.2015 could not have been made." 7. Thus, we hold that no fee was leviable to the assessee u/s 234E in violation of section 200(3), because assessee had furnished the statement immediately after depositing all the tax without any delay. Accordingly, the demand on account of 234E is cancelled. 8. Similarly interest u/s 220(2) cannot be levied when fee u/s 234E itself is not leviable. In so far as charging of interest u/s 201(IA), the same cannot be charged as admittedly no order u/s 201(1) has been passed holding the ass....
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....le of consistency is not applicable and c) Late of fee u/s. 234 E is leviable for defaults of period in filing the TDS/TCS statements/ returns even for the period prior to 01-06-2015 23.1 So far as the argument of the Ld. DR on the basis of various decisions including the decision of Hon'ble Delhi High Court in the case of Biswajit Das (supra) that provisions of section 234E are constitutionally valid is concerned, no doubt the provisions of section 234 E have been held to be constitutionally valid which is not the dispute before us. So far as the argument of Ld. DR on rule of consistency is concerned, the same in our opinion is not absolute but in the present case we are faced with a situation which has been considered by our coordinate benches and there is no subsequent development to depart there from. Moreover, our coordinate Benches have followed one approach in view of conflicting decision of different High Courts in the absence of any decision of the Jurisdictional High Court. So far as the levy of fee u/s. 234E for defaults of period in filing TDS/TCS statements / returns even for the period prior to 1.06.2015 is concerned, as mentioned earlier th....