Case Law Details
The appellate jurisdiction always lies with the forum who is higher in rank than the forum whose order is under challenge; meaning thereby the appellate court or jurisdiction can examine the order of the inferior court and not of the court or authority who is equivalent in rank.
In the instant case, undeniably the order under section 271FA was passed by the Director of Income-tax who is equivalent in rank with the Commissioner (Appeals). Therefore, the order of the Director of Income-tax cannot be challenged or assailed by filing an appeal before an Officer,i.e., the Commissioner (Appeals), who is equivalent in rank with the Director of Income-tax. The appeal can only be filed before a higher forum than the forum whose order is to be challenged and the higher forum is only Tribunal and before it the order of the Director of Income-tax can only be challenged by filing an appeal.
The provisions of section 253(1) in which the order of the Assessing Officer, which has been passed with the approval of the Commissioner pursuant to the Dispute Resolution Panel comprising of the Commissioner can only be challenged before the Tribunal by filing an appeal. In the light of these facts, when the order of the Assessing Officer passed with the approval of the Commissioner can only be challenged before the Tribunal, then how the order of the Director of Income-tax who is equivalent in rank with the Commissioner (Appeals) can be challenged before the Commissioner (Appeals). The only forum where this order of the Director of Income-tax can be challenged is the Tribunal which is higher in rank to the Director of Income-tax.
With these observations, the appeal by the assessee has been rightly filed before the Tribunal and the Tribunal is competent to adjudicate the appeal on merit. Accordingly, the preliminary objection of the revenue with regard to the maintainability of the appeal before the Tribunal is rejected. Accordingly, the registry is directed to fix this appeal for hearing on merit.
Please correct the title of the article – it is misleading. The title should say order of ‘DIT’ cannot be appealed before CIT(A) and not ‘DCIT’ as ‘DCIT’ stands for Deputy Commissioner of Income-tax who is subordinate to CIT(A)