Delhi High Court Expresses Concern Over Delay In Disposal Of Matters Before National Faceless Appeal Centre

The Delhi High Court has expressed grave concern over the pendency of over 5.4 Lakh appeals before the National Faceless Appeal Centre (NFAC).The body was created for faceless assessment under Section 143 or 144 of the Income Tax Act, 1961, by the insertion of Section 144B via the Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation and Amendment of Certain Provisions) Act, 2020.A division bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela remarked, “This court is cognizant of the large number of statutory appeals pending for disposal before the NFAC and express concern over the delay in disposal of such appeals, for which the NFAC was envisaged. ”It has thus directed the NFAC to take remedial steps in all earnestness and dispose of the pending appeals.The development comes in a writ petition moved by an Appeal over the pendency of its income tax appeal before the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) for more than 2 years.Petitioner sought expeditious disposal of its appeal, along with award of interest and compensatory cost in light of the “gross delay”. Petitioner had also sought to prevent alleged harassment caused to the taxpayers by issuance of guidelines for disposal of pending Appeals.During the hearing, Senior counsel appearing for the Department handed over to the bench a roadmap drawn by the NFAC to dispose of pending appeals in a time-bound manner, as per the Central Action Plan 2024-25.Following which, the Court said it expects that the NFAC would endeavour to implement the said remedial measures in all earnest.So far as the Petitioner is concerned, the Court ordered the disposal of its appeal in 8 weeks.Appearance: Mr. Sankalp Malik, Advocate for Petitioner; Mr. Kushagra Kumar, SPC and Mr. Abhinav Bhardwaj, GP, for UOI Mr. Sunil Agarwal, SSC with Mr. Shivansh B. Pandey, Mr. Viplav Acharya, Ms. Priya Sarkar, JSC and Mr. Utkarsh Tiwari, Advocates for RespondentCase title: Suparshva Swabs (I) v. National Faceless Appeal Centre & Ors.Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 261Case no.: W.P.(C) 356/2025Click here to read order

Delhi High Court Expresses Concern Over Delay In Disposal Of Matters Before National Faceless Appeal Centre

Kapil Dhyani

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