Under proviso to Rule 24 of the Appellate Tribunal Rules the assessee has to show that there was sufficient cause for his non-appearance and only in the event of proving sufficient cause for non-appearance, ex-parte order passed by the Appellate Tribunal can be restored. It is, therefore, necessary to see as to whether reasons given by the assessee can be considered as sufficient cause for non-appearance.
We have carefully gone through the submissions made by the counsel and find that the assessee could not prove sufficient cause for non-appearance on the date fixed for hearing. If Mr. Thankanchan/Shah/ Subramanian claims to be the authorized representatives they ought to have filed their respective power of attorney/authorization memo but no such authorization memo was available on record.
The appeals were dismissed twice and on few occasions it was brought to the notice of the party that adjournments were being sought on spurious grounds.
It also deserves to be noticed that assessee engaged M/s. Shah & Sanghvi, CAs which is evident from the fact that the said CAs have filed these appeals, along with their covering letter wherein it was stated that they were requested to file appeals on behalf of the assessee, which implies that they were the authorized representatives but even M/s. Shah & Sanghvi did not file the power of attorney.
Though Mr. M. Subramanian appeared on number of occasions and was also successful in getting earlier ex-parte order recalled, fact remains that the power of attorney was not filed and it was filed only when it was verified and pointed out during the course of hearing of the present Miscellaneous Applications which also indicates that the assessee as well as his counsels have done lackluster attempt to represent the matters by not fulfilling all the criterion necessary to represent the matter before the Tribunal, in time.
Under these circumstances, we are of the firm opinion that explanation of the assessee for non-appearance does not deserve to be accepted. We therefore dismiss the present Miscellaneous Applications.
INCOME TAX APPELLATE TRIBUNAL
“C” Bench, Mumbai
Before Shri D. Manmohan (VP) & Shri Rajendra Singh (AM)
M.A. No. 721/Mum/2012 arising out
I.T.A. No. 7149/Mum/2008
(Assessment Year : 1988-89)
M.A. No. 722/Mum/2012 arising out
I.T.A. No. 7150/Mum/2008 – (Assessment Year : 1990-91)
Shri Paresh S. Shah Vs. ITO
Assessee by : Shri M. Subramaian
