2025 (8) TMI 762

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.... the following grounds of appeal: "1. That the Learned Assessing Officer has erred in law and on facts in imposing a penalty of Rs. 20,000/- under section 271A(1)(d) of the Income-tax Act, 1961. The Learned Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) has further erred in confirming the said penalty without properly appreciating that there existed a reasonable cause for the default, as envisaged under section 273B of the Act. 2. The appellant craves leave to add, alter or delete any ground either before or in the course of hearing of the appeal." 3. The brief facts of the case are that the present appeal is preferred by the assessee, Ms. Jayshree Nilam Patel, against the order of penalty levied under section 272A(1)(d) of the I....

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....n 142(1) of the Act were also issued. However, all these communications went unanswered. The A.O. consequently completed the assessment ex-parte under section 147 read with section 144 of the Act on 30.05.2023, observing that the assessee had adopted a non-cooperative approach. An addition of Rs. 3,17,87,500/- was made to the total income under section 69 of the Act and finalized after no objections were filed before the Dispute Resolution Panel. 4. Following the completion of the assessment, the A.O. initiated penalty proceedings under section 272A(1)(d) of the Act by issuing notices dated 30.05.2023 and 02.11.2023. These, too, were not responded to by the assessee for the same reason-lack of service or knowledge of such notices. The A.....

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....he ld. counsel for the assessee before us, the case of the assessee is that she was never effectively served with the notices, whether under sections 148A(b), 148, 142(1), or the penalty notices. The assessee, being a non-resident, had no reason to anticipate assessment proceedings for the relevant year as her total income was not liable to be taxed in India, the assessee being a non-resident for the past thirty years. Even in quantum proceedings, CIT(Appeals) has restored the matter to the file of the Assessing Officer for de novo consideration. We note that the assessee was unaware of any of these proceedings, and came to know about them for the first time only upon receipt of a demand notice under section 156 via email on 29.11.2023 from....