TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2023 (3) TMI 1032
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....d to as the "Act"), dated 07.12.2016. 2. The assessee in this appeal has originally taken the following grounds of appeal:- "(1) For that the orders passed by the lower authorities are arbitrary, erroneous, without proper reasons, invalid and bad -in- law, to the extent to which they are prejudicial to the interests of the appellant. (2) For that the ld . CIT ( A) ought to have taken in to consideration the factual aspect of the case and should not have only modified the order of the T PO. (3) For that the ld . CIT(A) ought to have considered the submission made before him relating to consideration of method to be adopted for determination of Arm's Length Price. (4) For that the ld . CIT(A) ought to have considered RPM Method or....
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....hod as mentioned in the submission of the appellant for determination of the Arm's Length Price instead of altering TNMM Method as adopted by the TPO. (7) For that the appellant craves leave to amend, alter, modify, substitute, add to, abridge and/or rescind any or all of the above grounds. 4. Through the additional grounds, ld. Counsel for the assessee inter alia has taken the jurisdictional issue that Ld. Assessing Officer was required to serve draft of proposed order of assessment upon the assessee before issuing the final assessment order.Since Ld. Assessing Officer had failed to serve such draft order upon the assessee , depriving it to file objections against the said draft of proposed order of assessment, therefore, the fina....
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.... (2) On receipt of the draft order, the eligible assessee shall with in thirty days of the receipt by him of the draft order,- (a) file his acceptance of the variations to the Assessing Officer, or (b) file his objections, if any, to such variation with, - ( i) the Dispute Resolution Panel; and ( ii) the Assessing Officer. (3) The Assessing Officer shall complete the assessment on the basis of the draft order, if - (a) The assessee intimates to the Assessing Officer the acceptance of the variation; or (b) No objections are received with in the period specified in sub-section (2)........ ......... ......... .". 6. Ld. Counsel for the assessee has invited our attention to para 9 of the impugned assessment order, wherei....
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....e objections to the Dispute Resolution Pane l and to the Assessing Officer. 8. We agree with the contention of the Ld. Counsel that this mandatory requirement of forwarding a draft of the proposed order of assessment cannot be done away with,by any waiver given by the assessee during assessment proceedings. Despite the contention of the Ld. Sr. DR that though the Ld. AO was supposed to pass draft of the proposed order of assessment in terms of mandatory provision of section 144C of the Act and that he should not have depended on the waiver given by the assessee of it not intending to file the objections, yet the assessee should not be allowed to take benefit of its own waiver before the ld. AO and come with the plea at the second appellate....
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....ithout forwarding a draft of the proposed order of assessment by the AO, assessee has given its waiver that it did not intend to file objection which does not meet mandatory compliance requirement of the provisions of section 144C of the Act. 10. In the present set of facts, we note that principles of estoppels will not operate against the Act. It is obligatory on the part of the ld. AO to comply with the mandatory procedural requirements of completing the assessment. Hon'ble jurisdictional High Court of Calcutta in the case of CIT v. Bhaskar Mitter 73 Taxman 437 (Cal) observed in para 8 that "There is no estoppel by conduct against law nor is there any waiver of the legal right as much as the legal liability to be assessed otherwise than ....