2018 (5) TMI 2108

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.... common ground: "The Ld. CIT(A) erred in fact and in law in confirming the penalty of Rs. 10,000/-under section 271 (1) (b) of the income tax Act, 1961 which is not only illegal but also against the facts and circumstances of the case." 2. Facts, the question of law and the grounds of appeal involved in all these appeals are the same, as such all these matters could be conveniently disposed of by this common order. 3. Facts, in brief, are that a search and seizure operation was carried out under Section 132(1) of the Act at the business premises of the company M/s ACR sugar industries Private limited (Sameer Thukral group of companies) and the residential premises of the directors on 28/03/2011. The assessees received notices....

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....een levied. Ld.AR brought to our notice that in the cases of the other group companies in ITA Nos.589 to 591/12/2015, a coordinate bench of this Tribunal has dealt with the issue at length and reached their conclusion that there was no wilful default on the part of the assessee or non cooperative attitude with the Department and on the premises deleted the penalty. Since the facts continue to be similar in all the cases, he prayed that the ratio may be applied to this set of cases also and the penalty may be deleted. 5. Per contra, Ld. DR submitted that the assessee has not complied with the notice fixing the date of hearing in assessment proceedings on 28/12/2012 and, therefore, is rightly liable to be saddled with penalty. He placed re....

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....be sustained. The relevant findings read as under : "We also find that the finally the order was passed under s. 143(3) and not under s. 144 of the Act. This means that subsequent compliances in the assessment proceedings was considered as good compliance and the defaults committed earlier were ignored by the AO. Therefore, in such circumstances, there could have been no reason to come to the conclusion that the default was willful." 7. In the instant case the notice issued for hearing on 20.12.2012 stood complied with, as the AR of the assessee attended the proceedings on this date and submitted reply/details which he had in possession. The ld. DR also could not refute the contention of the assessee that all the informati....