Reply Of The Taxpayer Not Considered: Bombay High Court Quashes Income Tax Faceless Assessment

The Bombay High Court bench, consisting of Justice A.S. Chandurkar and Justice Pushpa V. Ganediwala, has quashed the income tax faceless assessment as the reply of the taxpayer was not considered by the department/respondent.The income tax department has launched the Faceless Facility for income tax appeals. Under the facility, all the cases will be completed in a faceless way in a faceless environment, except for appeals that are related to evasion of tax, serious fraud, black money, international tax, and special research. The petitioner has challenged the assessment order on the grounds of breach and non-compliance with the principles of natural justice as there was no proper and sufficient opportunity granted to the petitioner to respond to the show cause notice. The petitioner was called upon to respond to the show cause notice within a period of three days from the receipt of the notice. The petitioner was informed that he could request a grant of personal hearing, which, if granted, would be conducted through video conferencing. In response, the petitioner made a request for adjournment on medical grounds. The petitioner also indicated on the same day that the matter would require explanation due to the complexity of the facts and requested a personal hearing through video conference. The petitioner filed a detailed reply to the show cause notice. The department however issued the assessment order in question without considering the reply furnished by the petitioner. Counsel for the respondent submitted that after considering the entire material on record the assessment order was passed. Since no new fact or material evidence was submitted by the petitioner, the assessment order came to be passed in accordance with law. Due opportunity was given to the petitioner before passing the assessment order. An alternate remedy by way of statutory appeal under Section 264 of the Income Tax Act was available to the petitioner for challenging the assessment order. The court observed that an alternate remedy by way of statutory appeal was available to the petitioner. However, the assessment order had been issued without granting due and proper opportunity to the petitioner, so the court is not inclined to relegate the petitioner to availing of that statutory remedy. Case Title: Pankaj s/o Roshan Dhawan Versus National e-Assessment Centre Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Bom) 81Case No.: Writ Petition No.1927/2021 Counsel For Petitioner: Advocate S.C.Thakar Counsel For Respondent: Advocate A.J.Bhoot Click Here To Read/Download order

Reply Of The Taxpayer Not Considered: Bombay High Court Quashes Income Tax Faceless Assessment

Mariya Paliwala

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