Substantial Justice Should be Preferred Over Technical Delay in Appeal Filing: ITAT

The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), Mumbai Bench, recently gave relief to an assessee by accepting a delayed appeal. The delay occurred as the notices were sent to some other email ID, which the assessee did not have access to.

The assessee, Shobha Sacheendra, is an NRI living in Zambia. The main issue in this case was that the notices and communications were sent to different email IDs, which were being managed by different tax consultants. Due to this, the assessee was unaware of all such notices and the assessment proceedings. She came to know about the assessment order much later when a new consultant checked the income tax portal.

She challenged the order before the CIT(A); however, her appeal was dismissed due to a delay of 142 days. She approached the ITAT by filing an appeal, which was delayed by 115 days.

Before the ITAT, she said that the delay was unintentional and bona fide, as the communications were not sent to her personal email ID and were sent to a consultant’s email beyond her access.

The Tribunal accepted her explanation and noted that she did not get any benefit from filing the appeal late. The tribunal ruled that when substantial justice and technical considerations are pitted against each other, the cause of substantial justice deserves to be preferred.

The tribunal also noted that the assessee had explained the reason behind the delay in
filing the appeal before the learned CIT(A). It was concluded that the assessee had given enough explanation for the delay in filing the appeal before CIT(A).

As a result, the ITAT condoned the delay and set aside the earlier order of the CIT(A). The matter was sent back for fresh consideration on merits after giving the assessee a proper hearing opportunity.

The assessee was also directed to update her email address.