Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Undue delay in filing of appeal was not condonable when assessee was working with professional advice of CA


Delay in filing appeal not acceptable when it was found that assessee was acting on professional advice of Chartered Accountant.

Facts:


a)The Commissioner invoked the revsional jurisdiction directing the Assessing Officer to redo the assessment, and, accordingly, the Assessing Officer (‘AO’) passed an order under section 143(3). The assessee filed an appeal before the CIT(A), which was dismissed.

b)The assessee submitted that it was not in his knowledge that an appeal laid against the order under Section 263, and it was only when he approached an Advocate, it came to his knowledge that appeal was not filed.

c)The assessee prayed that since the delay was neither intentional nor deliberate, but was for valid reasons, it might be condoned.

The Tribunal held in favour of revenue as under:

1)The assessee had filed the appeal against the consequential order passed by the AO and a Chartered Accountant represented it.

2)It was clear that the assessee was acting on the professional advice of the Chartered Accountant. Therefore, it could not be accepted that the assessee was unaware of the legal remedy available to it.

3)However, the assessee had filed the present appeal, nearly more than a year after the filing of the original appeal. Thus, the assessee had not satisfactorily explained the delay in the filing of the appeal against the order under section 263.

4)It proved that the assessee had not been vigilant enough in pursuing its legal remedies. Therefore, the delay in the filing of the appeal could not be condoned and, consequently, the appeal was to be dismissed as time-barred. - PIONEER E BIZZ. (P.) LTD. V. DY./ACIT [2014] 46 taxmann.com 456 (Hyderabad - Trib.)