Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Date of dispatch or service of order isn’t relevant for maintainability of settlement application

The disputed issue before the High Court was as under:

Whether the order of assessment would be deemed to be pending for purpose of maintainability of settlement application just because such order was not dispatched or served?

The High Court held as under:

1) There has been divergent views of Bombay High Court and Delhi High Court on this impugned issue. In case of CIT v. Income tax settlement commission[2015] 58 taxmann.com 264 (Bombay) the Bombay High Court held that the date of service of assessment order is the crucial date only after which application for settlement could not be filed. However, in case of Qualimax Electronics (P.) Ltd. v. Union of India [2010] 27 STT 231 (Delhi) the Delhi High Court held that the crucial date would be the date of dispatch of the order and not the date of its service.