Neelam Ajit Phatarpekar Vs ACIT (Bombay High Court)
Bombay High Court held that in absence of express authorization, thus service upon the Chartered Accountant [CA] do not absolve the Tribunal of serving the copies of the order upon the assessee. Thus, appeal allowed and delay condoned.
Facts- The two Miscellaneous Civil Applications filed in the Income Tax Appeals seek condonation of delay in its institution, on the ground that the delay is bonafide and since the certified copy of the order of the Tribunal, against which the appeals are filed were received on 17.05.2024, and there is a delay of 40 days in filing the Appeals.
Conclusion- The Chartered Accountant since is not also authorised specifically to accept copy of the order, cannot be said to be a recognised agent of the Assessee.
The Orissa High Court while dealing with a similar issue where the assessee engaged a lawyer at the time of submitting memorandum of appeal to the Tribunal but had stated his own address in the form to which all communication should be sent and when the lawyer argued the appeal but the order was not pronounced on the very same day and a copy was handed over to him at a subsequent point of time which was received by the assessee at a belated stage, when the benefit of limitation was sought to be taken by the assesee, held that since there was no express authorisation to the lawyer to receive the order, the date of receipt of order by the lawyer could not be taken as starting point for limitation.
