TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1981 (5) TMI 49
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....tices. It was submitted that Shri Sohan Lal, one of the partners who used to attend to the income-tax matters expired on 4th Feb., 1979 and thereafter Shri Subhash Chander, one of the other partners started looking after such matters. The appellate order was served upon Sadhu Singh who was an employee and hostile to the assessee as he was leading the other employees for increase in their wages and the assessee came to know that the order in the appeal had been made for the year under appeal only when the assessee approached the CIT (A) and he informed vide his letter No. 1833 dt. 29th Jan., 1980, appearing at page 2 of the assessee's paper book, that the service was affected on Sadhu Singh on 29th May, 1979. Thereafter, the assessee asked f....
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....t. Nirmala Devi and others (1979) 118 ITR 507 (SC) for the proposition that there is no general rule than mistake of counsel by itself is always a sufficient ground and it will always a question whether the mistake was bonafide or was merely a device to cover an ulterior purpose such as laches on the part of the litigant or an attempt to save limitation in an under-hand way. The Court must see whether, in such cases, there is any taint of mala-fides or element of recklessness or ruse. The ld. Counsel for the assessee submitted that the assessee was not aware of the order served on Sadhu Singh. Therefore, when it came to the knowledge of the assessee, efforts were made to obtain a copy thereof and appeal was filed without any loss of time. T....
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....f the appellate order by him was unauthorised. For a solitary acceptance of notice by him and response thereto by the assessee should not be interpreted as unauthorising him to receive notices on behalf of the assessee. As such, he was not an authorised agent of the assessee. 6. We have given careful consideration to the rival submissions and we are of the opinion that the assessee's delay in furnishing the appeal was due to reasonable and sufficient cause. In the case of Prem Kumar Rastogi cited by the assessee supra, the Hon'ble High Court approved the view taken by the Tribunal that Shri Rastogi was not an authorised agent of the assessee though he had been receiving notices earlier on behalf of the assessee. In that case for the asst....
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....r the mistake was bonafide or was merely a device to cover an ulterior purpose such as laches on the part of litigant or an attempt to save limitation in an under-hand way. The Court must see whether, in such cases there is any taint of mala-fides or element of recklessness or ruse. 7. After examining the fact of the case, we find that though the Revenue has argued that there was service of one of the notices on Shri Sadhu Singh, there is no other instance or notice having been received by Sadhu Singh. The factum of death of Sohan Lal, one of the partners who used to attend to income-tax proceedings has also to be taken into consideration in determining the issue before us. It has not been shown that the assessee had appeared before the ....