TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2024 (1) TMI 69
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....n 119(2)(b) of the Income-Tax Act, 1961 contains two grounds of rejection. The first is pertaining to genuineness and genuine hardship claimed by the petitioner in submitting return with the delay of 26 days. One of the reasons given by the petitioner in response to the show-cause notice and as also in the application seeking for condonation of delay on grounds of genuine hardship was : - "a. The accounts for FY 2019-20 could not be finalized in time because the accounts staff could not attend duties for a considerable time due to Covid 19 pandemic related issues and inaccessibility of Directors due to their predominant pre-occupation with treatment of Covid patients as hospital was converted into dedicated Covid care facility." 4. The said claim was rebutted in paragraph 5(b) with the observation that the contention of the applicant that account staff was not available, was factually incorrect, inasmuch as, the said contention was not supported by any documentary evidence as well. It was stated therein that the hospital was running throughout the year and in absence of accounting staff, it would not be possible to manage day to day operations and routine business of th....
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....cogent reason. 8. It was contended that the reasons provided for not filing the return were of general nature and could not be accepted as a ground for genuine hardship as per paragraph 5(I) of the circular dated 09.0.2015, the application seeking for condonation of delay under Section 119(2)(b) for filing income tax return for A.Y. 2020-21 is liable to be rejected. 9. Having said so, the respondent No. 2 had proceeded to examine the correctness of the claim made by the petitioner in the application seeking for refund of TDS and concluded that the applicant has failed to establish the correctness and genuineness of income and refund claim for A.Y. 2020-21 as well. Thus, it seems to us that while rejecting the application seeking for condonation of delay, the respondent No. 2 has also proceeded to examine the correctness of the claim made by the petitioner to state that the application can be rejected. 10. Based on the decisions of this Court in Shailesh Vitthalbhai Patel vs. Chief Commissioner of Income-tax, reported in [2022] 145 taxmann.com 10 (Gujarat), it is argued by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the reason given in the order impugned for rejection of th....
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....record. 14. Taking note of the above decisions of the Division Benches of this Court, the Bombay High Court as also the judgment of the Kerala High Court in M/s. Best Ready Mix Concrete versus the Principal Commissioner of Income Tax passed in WP(C) No. 37648 of 2023, placed before us, we may go through Section 119(2)(b); sub-section 2(b) provides that the Board to auhtorise any income tax authority, not being a commissional (appeals) to admit an application or claim for refund etc. after expiry of the period specified under the Act for making such application or claim and deal with the same on merits in accordance with law. 15. CBDT circular No. 09/2015 dated 09.06.2015 has been issued to prescribing guidelines on the condonation of delay and the procedure to be followed in dealing with the applications under Section 119(2)(b) of the Income-tax Act. 16. Clause (5) of the circular reads as under : - "5. The powers of acceptance / rejection of the application within the monetary limits delegated to the Pr.CcsIT/CcsIT/Pr.CsIT/CsIT in case of such claims will be subject to following conditions : i. At the time of considering the case under Section 119(2)(b),....
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....T, we are of the considered view that the first ground for rejection of the application seeking condonation of delay in submitting the return that no genuine hardship can be said to have been caused to the petitioner is a result of is an arbitrary approach of respondent No. 2. As noted above, the delay was merely 26 days and judicial notice can be taken to the fact that the country was facing overwhelming situation of second wave of Covid-19, which turned out to be fatal between the last week of March, 2021 till June, 2021, the entire set up of the whole country was paralyzed. Hospitals were flooded with patients and lot of death had occurred during the said period. The petitioner being a hospital establishment, having been declared a dedicated Covid facility by the District Administration, demonstrably was dealing with unprecedented adverse circumstances. The claim of the applicant that the delay of 26 days had occurred because of the absence of account staff or the staff being pre-occupied with other Covid duties and also dealing with the hospital administration due to flooding of patients, the claim of the petitioner that it was a genuine hardship, is found to be correct. 20.....