Case Law Details
Greater Mohali Area Development Authority Vs. DCIT (ITAT Chandigarh)
It is established beyond doubt that Assessing officer has not acted in this case in the manner she was supposed to act being a quasi-judicial officer. Taking undue benefit from the procedural lacunas, sequence of events had been so managed by the officials of the Department during the period falling in between the date of pronouncement of the order of CIT(A) and the date of receipt of the copy of the same by the petitioner/ assessee, thereby creating such circumstances, whereby, putting the assessee in a helpless condition and taking advantage of his helplessness by way of attaching the bank account of the assessee and withdrawing the money therefrom, before the assessee could receive the order of Ld. CIT(A) and approach to the higher forum for stay of the operation of the said order and thereby foreclosing the remedy available to the assessee under the Act and rendering the assessee helpless and remediless. Even the Department continued to make the coercive action even after the filing of the appeal and the present Stay Application before this Tribunal and even on a date when the matter was fixed for hearing on the Stay Application before this Tribunal. The act of the Assessing officer demonstrates that she wanted to preempt the Tribunal from dealing with the Stay application which was scheduled for hearing on November 22, 2017. The Act and conduct of the Revenue officials in this case is against the judicial conscience. Canons of law, justice and ethics have been broken down by the officials of the Department. An effort has been made to render the provisions of the law inoperative, debarring the petitioner from availing any remedy from the higher forum.
FULL TEXT OF THE ITAT ORDER IS AS FOLLOWS:-
With this common order we will dispose of the captioned applications of the assessee seeking stay for the recovery of outstanding tax demand for assessment year 2009-10 & 2013-14 respectively. Almost identical pleadings have been made in both the applications. The facts for the sake of convenience are taken from the application for assessment year 2009-10.
2. It has been pleaded that assessee is a local authority and derives income from business of developing land and sale of plots. The assessee filed return of income declaring loss of Rs. 1,33,47,31,227/-. However, the Assessing officer framed the assessment vide order dated 30.11.2011 at a positive income of Rs. 31,30,73,577/-. Thereafter, the assessment was reopened u/s 147 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (in short ‘the Act’) and in the reopened assessment, the addition relating to External Development Charges (EDC) were made and the income was assessed at Rs. 1,31,64,65,505/-. The assessee preferred an appeal before the Ld. Commissioner of Income Tax (appeals) in [short CIT(A)] challenging the said reopening as well as additions made. Out of the total demand of Rs. 633912410/- raised by the Assessing officer, an amount of Rs. 10 crores had already been paid/deposited by the assessee. It has been pleaded that since 15% of the total of demand already stood paid when the appeal was preferred before the CIT(A) hence, the Assessing officer vide his order dated 24.3.2017 had granted the stay of recovery of the remaining amount till the pendency of the appeal before the CIT(A) in view of the Board’s Circular No. 1914 and CBDT modified Instruction No. 1914 dated 29.2.2016. It has been further pleaded that though Ld. CIT(A) dismissed the appeal of the assessee on 17.10.2017, however, the order was dispatched by his office to the assessee vide dispatch No. 1584 dated 6.11.2017 which was received by the assessee on 9.11.2017 and the assessee immediately presented the appeal before the Tribunal along with present Stay Application on 13.11.2017. However, in the meantime, the Department on 2.11.2017 through coercive measure attached the bank account of the assessee and recovered approx. Rs. 10 crores from different bank accounts without affording opportunity of hearing or giving any show cause notice to the assessee or declaring the assessee in default and even before the receipt of the order of the CIT(A) and no time was given to the assessee to seek the stay of the recovery from any higher forum/court. It has been further pleaded that the assessee approached the Hon’ble Punjab & Haryana High Court on 9.11.2017 by way of writ petition and the stay was granted by the Hon’ble Punjab & Haryana High Court for further recovery of the demand. It has also been pleaded that assessee has an arguable case on merits. That the assessee is a local authority and requires funds for its development activity. Further the assessee has raised substantial loans from the banks and thus has monthly interest liability and the assessee has not much liquid funds for the payment of the uncalled for demand by the Department. It has, therefore, been requested that the further recovery of tax demand and interest thereupon be stayed.
Please become a Premium member. If you are already a Premium member, login here to access the full content.
Author Bio
