TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2024 (1) TMI 307
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....it made during the demonetization period (08-11- 2016 to 30-12-2016) and thereby raised demand of Rs. 29,14,015/-without considering the submission made by the Appellant and rejecting the explanation and requisite documents already submitted during the course of assessment proceedings. 3. The learned CIT(A) has erred both in law and on the facts in confirming the addition of Rs. 27,87,500/- u/s.69A r.w.s.115 BBE of the Act, on account of alleged Unexplained Money Ignoring the profession of the Appellant and/or without appreciating the fact that the same is the part of gross receipts from his profession and the net income on such receipts have already been offered to tax as income in the ROI filed for the preceding previous years. 4. The learned CIT (A) has erred both in law and on the facts in confirming the impugned addition to the total income of the Appellant by wrongly invoking section 69A r.w.s. 115BBE of the Act. The learned CIT (A) failed to take note of the fact that the provisions of Section 69A was not applicable where assessee had duly recorded transaction of cash deposit in bank during demonetization period in books of account. Section 69A applies only to those unac....
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....but then (hat is not the case of Assessing Officer. The assessee, apart from raising several other grounds, has challenged She legality of the addition being made under section 69A of the Act. In support of the assessee's contentions, the AK placed reliance on the decision on the decision of the ITAT- Mumbai Bench in the case of Dy. CIT v. Karthik Construction Co. In ITA No.22292/Mum/2016, dated 23-2-2018 [2018 Taxpub (DT) 1507 (Mum-Trib)], wherein 'the 'Bench at para 6 thereof has held that addition under section 69A of the Act cannot be made in respect of those assets I monies /'entries which are recorded in the assessee's hooks of account. As regards ITA Nos. 1383 and 1384/'Bang/'201'9, my considered view is that the aforesaid decision of the ITAT - Mumbai Bench (supra) is squarely applicable to the facts of the case on hand, where the entries are recorded in the assessee's books of account. In this view the matter, I am of the opinion that the addition of Rs. 6,30,000 made under section 69A of the Act is bad in law in the facts and circumstances of the case on hand and therefore, delete the addition of Rs. 6,30,000 made thereunder. The Assess....
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....and taken steps to file the appeal before this Tribunal. Thus, it caused 424 days delay in filing the appeal before this Tribunal and prayed to condone the delay. 3. The ld. D.R. strongly opposed the admission of appeal and submitted that assessee is habitual in filing appeal belatedly as the appeal before NFAC also filed belatedly. Hence, no liberal view to be taken on this case and appeals shall not be admitted for adjudication. 4. We have heard the rival submissions and carefully perused the record. While considering a delay in filing the appeal, the Apex Court in the case of Collector, Land Acquisition v. Mst. Katiji and Ors. (167 ITR 471) laid down six principles. For the purpose of convenience, the principles laid down by the Apex Court are reproduced hereunder: (1} Ordinarily, a litigant does not stand to benefit by lodging an appeal late. (2) Refusing to condone delay can result in a meritorious' matter being thrown at the very threshold and cause of justice being defeated. As against this, when delay is condoned, the highest that can happen is that a cause would be decided on merits after hearing the parties. (3) 'Every day's delay must be explained'....
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....excessive or inordinate. There is no question of any excessive or inordinate when the reason stated by the assessees was a reasonable cause for not filing the appeals. We have to see the cause for the delay. When there was a reasonable cause, the period of delay may not be relevant factor. In fact, the Madras High Court in the case of CIT vs. K.S.P. Shanmugavel Nadai and Ors. (153 ITR 596) considered the condonation of delay and held that there was sufficient and reasonable cause on the part of the assessee for not filing the appeal within the period of limitation. Accordingly, the Madras High Court condoned nearly 21 years of delay in filing the appeal. When compared to 21 years, 71 days cannot be considered to be inordinate or excessive. Furthermore, the Chennai Tribunal by majority opinion in the case of People Education and Economic Development Society (FEEDS) v. ITO (100 ITD 87) (Chennai) (TM> condoned more than six hundred days delay. It is pertinent to mention herein that the view taken by the present author in that case was overruled by the Third Member. 4.3. The Madras High Court in the case of Sreenivas Charitable Trust (280 ITR 357) (Mad) held that no hard and fast rule....
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...., it would depend upon the facts of each case. In our opinion, when there is sufficient cause for not filing the appeals within the period of limitation, the delay has to be condoned irrespective of the duration/period. In this case, the non-filing of an affidavit by the Revenue for opposing the condonation of delay itself is sufficient for condoning the delay in filing the appeals before the Tribunal. 4.5. In the judgment rendered by the Supreme Court in the case of Esha Bhattacharjee vs. Managing Committee of Raghunathpur Nafa Academy & others (Civil Appeal Nos. 8183 - 8184 of 2013), the Supreme Court has referred to some of the decisions rendered by Hon'ble Courts on the principles to be followed while adjudicating the issue of condonation of delay. For the sake of convenience, some of the judgments are extracted as follows: "a) In Collector, Land Acquisition, Anantnag and another v. Mst. Katiji and others (supra), a two-Judge Bench observed that the legislature has conferred power to condone delay by enacting Section 5 of the Indian Limitation Act of 1963 in order to enable the courts to do substantial justice to parties by disposing of matters on merits. The expression ....
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.... case will have to be considered on the particularities of its own special facts. However, the expression 'sufficient cause' in Section 5 must receive a liberal construction so as to advance substantial justice and generally delays in preferring appeals are required $o be condoned in the the interest of justice where no gross negligence or deliberate inaction or lack of bona fides is imputable to the party seeking condonation of the delay.".... (c) In this context, we may refer with profit to the authority in Oriental Aroma Chemical Industries Limited v. Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation and another (2010)(5 SCC . 459), where a two-Judge Bench of this Court has observed that the law of limitation is founded on public policy. The legislature does not prescribe limitation with the object of destroying the rights of the parties but to ensure that they do not resort to dilatory tactics and seek remedy without delay. The idea is that every legal remedy must be kept alive for a period fixed by the legislature. To put it differently, the law of limitation prescribes a period within which legal remedy can be availed for redress of the legal injury. At the same time, the ....
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....erefore, Ld.AO made addition of INR 5,82,76,300/- as income of the assessee u/s. 68 of the income tax act, by passing assessment order u/s. 144 of the Act. The Ld.AO made such addition as the assessee could not file requisite details as the notice was issued to the email address that was not functional. In the interest of justice, we deem it proper to remand the issues back to the Ld.AO for a de novo verification. 7.1 We have carefully gone through the various standard operating procedures laid down by the central board of direct taxes issued from time to time in case of operation clean. The 1st of such instruction was issued on 21/02/2017 by instruction number 03/2017. The 2nd instruction was issued on 03/03/2017 instruction number 4/2017. The 3rd instruction was in the form of a circular dated 15/11/2017 in F.No. 225/363/2017-ITA.II and the last one dated 09/08/2019 in F.no.225/145/2019-ITA.II. These instructions gives a hint regarding what kind of investigation, enquiry, evidences that the assessing officer is required to take into consideration for the purpose of assessing such cases. 8. In one of such instructions dated 09/08/2019 speaks about the comparative analysis of c....