ITAT Condones delay in Filing Income Tax Appeal Subject to payment in Prime Minister National Relief Fund

The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), Ahmedabad, gave another opportunity to an assessee in a time-barred appeal case.

The assessee, Brijesh Hariprasadbhai Raval, filed an appeal before the CIT(A), which was rejected for being time-barred. The CIT(A) claimed that the appeal was late by 1096 days. The assessee appealed before the ITAT, arguing that the CIT(A) had wrongly calculated the number of days for the delay.

As per the assessee, the appeal was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The order was passed on 14.10.2019, and the assessee received its copy on 08/03/2022, and the last day to file the appeal against this order was 08/04/2022. However, by this time, the COVID lockdown was announced, and the Supreme Court had announced an extended deadline to file the appeal, which was 29/05/2022. The assessee argued that its appeal, filed on 14/04/2022, was within the extended deadline. And even in normal circumstances, the appeal was delayed by only 7 days (08/04/2022 to 14/04/2022).

Further, the assessee argued that even if it is assumed that the order was received on 14/10/2019 and the limitation stopped running from 15/03/2020 as per the Apex court, the delay in filing the appeal can be 120 days.

The ITAT, citing the interest of justice, ruled that the assessee should get one more opportunity to present his case before the CIT(A). Therefore, the Tribunal quashed the CIT(A)’s order and restored the matter, subject to a payment of a cost of Rs 10,000 to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund.

The CIT(A) will decide the matter on its merits once the assessee shows the payment receipt to the CIT(A).