AI Drafter 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2024 (4) TMI 90
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....et, we note that there was a delay of 1607 days in filing the appeal by the assessee. There were condonation petition and affidavits filed by the assessee. The reasons specified therein for the delay was ill health and bankruptcy eventually running away from the society and police which has created lot of stress upon the assessee. The assessee has also filed the affidavits vide dated 23rd July 2021 and 23rd January 2024 in support of his contentions. The assessee has also filed medical bills, reports, prescriptions, and other correspondence relating to his ill health and cheque bouncing case filed before the Magistrate Court upon him to justify the delay and seek condonation. 4. In view of above the Ld. AR for the assessee before us submitted that the delay in filing the appeal occurred due to unavoidable situations. Therefore, the delay in filing the appeal should be condoned. 5. On the other hand Ld. Sr. D.R. submitted that the delay is inordinate and therefore vehemently opposed to condone such a huge delay and relied upon Madras High Court Judgment in the case of Royal Stitches (P.) Ltd. Vs. DCIT reported in [2023] 156 taxmann.com 361 (Madras) wherein it is held that wher....
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....lay. It depends upon case-to-case basis. However, the Hon'ble Courts in the series of judgements have held that while condoning the delay the expression of sufficient cause should be construed for advancing substantial justice to the party concerned. For evaluating sufficiency of cause and then, for deciding condonation of delay, following principles laid down by Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of Mst. Katiji (167 ITR 471) should be kept in mind: (i) Ordinarily, a litigant does not stand to benefit by lodging an appeal late. (ii) Refusing to condone delay can result in a meritorious matter being thrown out 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. (iii) "Every day's delay must be explained" does not mean that a pedantic approach should be taken. Why not every hour's delay, every second's delay? The doctrine must be applied in a rational common-sense pragmatic manner. (iv) When substantial justice and technical considerations are pitted against each other, cause of substantial just....
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....on for condonation of delay. The court has to examine whether the mistake is bona fide or was merely a device to cover an ulterior purpose. (See Manindra Land and Building Corpn. Ltd. v. Bhutnath Banerjee (AIR 1964 SC 1336 Mata Din v. A. Narayanan [(1969) 2 SCC 770), Parimal v. Veena [(2011) 3 SCC 545] and Moniben Devraj Shah v. Municipal Corpn. of Brihan Mumbai (2012) 5- SCC 157].)" (b) Ajay Dabre v. Pyare Ram 2023 SCC Online SC 92: '13. This Court in the case of Basawaraj v. Special Land Acquisition Officer while rejecting an application for condonation of delay for lack of sufficient cause has concluded in Paragraph 15 as follows: "15. The law on the issue can be summarised to the effect that where a case has been presented in the court beyond limitation, the applicant has to explain the court as to what was the "sufficient cause" which means an adequate and enough reason which prevented him to approach the court within limitation. In case a party is found to be negligent, or for want of bona fide on his part in the facts and circumstances of the case, or found to have not acted diligently or remained inactive, there cannot be a justified ground to con....
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....e bouncing as evident from the details available on record. If we aggregate all these factors, the fact that the assessee was having a stressful life cannot be ruled out and assessee was not in sound mind to take correct decisions on legal proceedings. 6.9 Besides the above, we note that all the credits in the form of cheque and cash deposits in the bank account of the assessee has been added to the total income of the assessee. The AO has done so in the absence of any cooperation from the side of the assessee despite the assessee being afforded several opportunities. However, what we find is this that there is no discussion in the assessment order as far as withdrawn from the banks is concerned. Thus, it is transpired that all the credits appearing in the bank has been treated as income of the assessee though the assessee during the assessment proceedings vide letter dated 22 January 2014 has submitted details with the request to tax the income under the provisions of section 44AF of the Act. As such, the reply submitted by the assessee vide letter dated 22 January 2014 was rejected by the AO stating that the detailed furnished was incomplete but how was it incomplete, the orde....
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....justice and to do justice. Thus, we condone the delay of 1607 days in filing the appeal and proceed to hear the appeal on merit for the adjudication. Now, we proceed to adjudicate the matter on merit: 7. The only issue raised by assessee in this appeal is that learned CIT-A erred in confirming the order of the AO by sustaining the addition of Rs. 54,23,290.00 under section 69 of the Act. 8. At the outset, it was noticed that the order passed by the ld. CIT-A and the AO is ex-parte. Furthermore, there was also delay in filing the appeal before the ITAT which has been condoned in the preceding paragraph after giving detailed reasons. The same reasoning can also be applied for non-appearance of the assessee before the revenue authorities while restoring the issue to the file of the AO for fresh adjudication as per the provisions of law. It is also directed to the assessee to extend the full co-operation during the assessment proceedings. Hence, the ground of appeal filed by the assessee is allowed for the statistical purposes. 8.1 In the result, the appeal of the assessee is allowed for statistical purposes. Coming ITA 193/AHD/2021 for AY 2011-12, an appeal by the asses....