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Thursday, October 2, 2014

High Court Irked By ITAT Remand + Dept Apologizes For Wilful Disobedience Of Law

Dear Subscriber,

 

The following important judgements are available for download at itatonline.org.


Coca-Cola India Private Limited vs. ITAT (Bombay High Court)

S. 254(1): Unnecessary remand by the ITAT causes prejudice and amounts to a failure to exercise jurisdiction

The Tribunal should not have refused to consider and decide the issue relating to service charges, more so, when an identical view taken by it earlier has not found favour of this Court. This Court repeatedly reminded the Tribunal of its duty as a last fact finding authority of dealing with all factual and legal issues. The Tribunal failed to take any note of the caution which has been administered by this Court and particularly of not remanding cases unnecessarily and without any proper direction. A blanket remand causes serious prejudice to parties. None benefits by non-adjudication or non-consideration of an issue of fact and law by an Appellate Authority and by wholesale remand of the case back to the original authority. This is a clear failure of duty which has to be performed by the Appellate Authority in law. Once the Appellate Authority fails to perform such duty and is corrected on one occasion by this Court, and in relation to the same assessee, then, the least that was expected from the Tribunal was to follow the order and direction of this Court and abide by it even for this later assessment year. If the same claim and which was dealt with by the Court earlier and for which the note of caution was issued, then, the Tribunal was bound in law to take due note of the same and follow the course for the later assessment years. We are of the view that the refusal of the Tribunal to follow the order of this Court and equally to correct its obvious and apparent mistake is vitiated as above. It is vitiated by a serious error of law apparent on the face of the record. The Tribunal has misdirected itself completely and in law in refusing to decide and consider the claim in relation to service charges.


ACIT vs. M/s. Veena Developers (ITAT Mumbai)

S. 253: Filing appeals in disregard & wilful disobedience to the law laid down constitutes gross abuse of power and deserves to be punished for contempt of court and by award of exemplary costs. Action not pursued in view of written apology of concerned officials

(i) This case is one of gross misuse of powers by the lower authorities. The AO in complete disregard and disobedience to the orders of the Tribunal as well as of the Hon'ble High Court again confirmed the disallowance while framing assessment u/s 153A without any incriminating material being found during the search. The act of negating the orders of the higher authorities in the very same case and thereby disallowing the claim of the assessee in the s. 153A proceedings without any new evidence or incriminating material being found amounts to the gross abuse of process of law in complete disregard and disobedience to the orders of the higher authorities and is an act which tends to lower down the authority of the higher courts. We may observe that if at all the issue will be decided by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in favour of the Revenue, then the orders of the lower authorities in that event would automatically merge in the order of the Supreme Court and implemented accordingly. However, the mere filing of appeal before the Hon'ble Supreme Court gives no authority to the AO to negate, disobey and disrespect to the orders of the higher authorities in the very same case. We may further notice that even after the decision of the CIT(A) in favour of assessee, the concerned CIT-Admin has given approval for filing the second round of appeal in the same case ignoring and in complete disregard and disobedience to the orders of the Tribunal as well as of the High Court vide which the issue in dispute has already been settled;


Regards,

 

Editor,

 

itatonline.org

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