TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (9) TMI 1040
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....0/- (Rupees Forty-One Lakh Eighty-Five Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Only); c) Issue appropriate Directions while quashing the Demand Notice issued by the Revenue under Section 143(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 and stay other consequential actions that may arise out of the Impugned Order; and d) Any other direction as this Hon'ble Court deems fit in the interest of justice." 2. In effect, the petitioner is challenging the order dated 30.05.2023 passed by the respondent, on an application under Section 119(2)(b) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 ('the Act') seeking condonation of delay in filing the Income Tax Return ('ITR') for the Assessment Year ('AY') 2021-22. The impugned order reads as under: "An application requesting for condonation of delay in filing ITR for A.Y. 2021-22 in the case of Sh. Udit Goyal, PAN: BNBPG4952J was filed in this office for following reason: "The assessee in his application mentioned that he filed ITR on 12.01.2022 u/s 139(4) of the Act declaring gross total income of Rs 11,44,302/-. He claimed loss under head LTCG amounting to Rs. 41,85,770/- from sale of securities which was claimed as loss carried over. As the ....
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....could not be filed on time. 7. According to him, there is no dispute that the pandemic variant 'Omicron' was hovering till December, 2021. Restrictions followed, even after that, on various services. 8. According to the counsel, the respondent failed to exercise the discretionary power under Section 119 of the Act to further the cause of equity. It is his submission that the respondent has also failed to follow the mandate of Section 119(2)(b) whereby the respondent was to focus on evaluating sufficiency of reasons for delay rather that merit. 9. He stated that the impugned order overlooks loss under sale of securities claimed by the assessee and return filed by him, demonstrating the assessee's intention to comply with applicable laws. It is also his submission that the impugned order is without any rationale/reasoning and merely states that the case is not a case of genuine hardship on merits as per the Central Board of Direct Taxes ('CBDT') Circular of 9/2015. The impugned order fails to consider that the assessee had already paid total taxes of Rs. 1,50,985/- against the total payable tax of Rs. 29,643/- resulting in a refund of Rs. 1,21,340/-. 10. He relied upon th....
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....hereafter till 31.12.2021 and as such the petitioner had ample time between July 2021 to December 2021 to file the ITR but the same was not filed within the time stipulated. No exceptional circumstances were shown for the delay that had occurred in filing their ITR. In support of his contention, he also relied upon the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of B.M Malani vs. CIT, (2008) 10 SCC 617. 17. Having heard the learned counsel for the parties, and perused the record, the short issue which arises for consideration is whether the respondent is justified in rejecting the application filed by the petitioner herein seeking condonation of delay of twelve days in filing the ITR. There is no dispute that as per circulars issued from time to time, the period to file the ITR was initially till 31.07.2021 for the AY 2021-22 which was extended till 31.10.2021, thereafter till 30.11.2021 and finally till 31.12.2021. The petitioner had filed the return on 12.01.2022. 18. It may be stated here that Section 119(2)(b) of the Act empowers the CBDT, if it considers it desirable or expedient so to do, for avoiding genuine hardship in any case or class of cases by general or special or....
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.... thereafter, seek refund of the monies so paid by mistake after the proceedings under the Act are dropped by the authorities concerned. The State is not entitled to plead the hyper-technical plea of limitation in such a situation to avoid return of the amounts. Section 119 of the Act vests ample power in the Board to render justice in such a situation. The Board has acted arbitrarily in rejecting the petitioner's request for refund." 24. We may also refer to the case of Sitaldas K. Motwani vs. Director General Of Income Tax, 323 ITR 223 (Bombay), wherein the Bombay High Court held that the phrase 'genuine hardship' in Section 119(2)(b) should have been construed liberally, even when the petitioner has complied with all the conditions mentioned in the Circular dated 12.10.1993. Paragraphs 15 and 16 of the judgment is reproduced as under: "15. The phrase "genuine hardship" used in section 119(2)(b) should have been construed liberally even when the petitioner has complied with all the conditions mentioned in Circular dated 12-10-1993 The Legislature has conferred the power to condone delay to enable the authorities to do substantive justice to the parties by disposing....
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....petitioner, this Court has observed as under: "21. However, a bare reading of the impugned order would reflect that there is no element of any reasoning, rationale or discussion by the PCIT before arriving at the conclusion that the case of assessee does not fall under the ambit of genuine hardship. 22. At this juncture, it is fundamental to refer to the observations made by the Constitution Bench of Hon'ble Supreme Court in the decision of Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election Commr. [(1978) 1 SCC 405], which are reproduced herein below:- "8. The second equally relevant matter is that when a statutory functionary makes an order based on certain grounds, its validity must be judged by the reasons so mentioned and cannot be supplemented by fresh reasons in the shape of affidavit or otherwise. Otherwise, an order bad in the beginning may, by the time it comes to court on account of a challenge, get validated by additional grounds later brought out. We may here draw attention to the observations of Bose, J. in Gordhandas Bhanji [Commr. of Police, Bombay v. Gordhandas Bhanji, 1951 SCC 1088 : AIR 1952 SC 16]: "Public orders, publicly made, in exercise....
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.... in filing the return of income, does not deal with the detailed application filed by the petitioner/assessee on 28.02.2023 in the following manner: "Second wave of pandemic hit the country causing the lock down from mid of April 2021 to such an extent that the Government was forced to extend the various due dates in filing of returns vide Circular 9/2021 (Annexure-4) and the date of Non-Corporate Returns which was July31, 2021 was extended to December 31,2021. During this period, the employees were forced to work from home with limited access to the office and thus causing lot of difficulty and the limitations, not only within the offices but also in commuting. Hence, the working of the offices was restricted substantially and was operative on the selective days as precaution. Hence, the physical absence of the teams and the records being untouchable did put restrictions on the on the execution of the time bound work. Keeping in view of such grave situation the tax department took several measures and provided relief to the tax payers & professionals by extending nearly all the dates of compliances. The due date of filing of return of income by the indiv....
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....ITR within the due date under section 139(1) of the Act which is verifiable from the records of the assessee. This was only the one time that the return of the assessee could not be filed for the reasons explained above and got marginally delayed. It would not be out of place to mention that due to the outbreak of Covid-19 global pandemic, various government Authorities extended various compliance dates. The Hon'ble Supreme Court also took suo-moto cognizance of the difficulties vide Order dated 23rd March 2020 that might be faced by litigants in filing petitions, applications, suits, appeals, and all other proceedings within the period of limitation prescribed by the general law or any special law (both central and state). Thereafter, due to second surge in Covid-19 cases, the Order dated 23.03.2020 was also restored till 28.02.2022. The present case also falls in the aforesaid period. Furthermore, keeping in view of the adverse impact of the 3 wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and the difficulties faced by taxpayers and professionals, the Hon'ble Central Board of Direct Taxes, via Circular No. 01 /2022 issued on January 11th, 2022 (Annexure-5) extended the t....