Jurisdiction of ITAT tied to location of AO who issued original assessment order

ACIT Vs Bank of Baroda (e-Vijaya Bank) (ITAT Mumbai)

jurisdiction of the ITAT in adjudicating an appeal would lie within the jurisdiction of the Assessing Officer who had passed the assessment order

In the case of ACIT Vs Bank of Baroda (e-Vijaya Bank) (ITAT Mumbai), the key issue was the jurisdiction of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) in adjudicating the appeal. This article explores the court’s findings on where the ITAT should handle appeals based on the location of the Assessing Officer (A.O.).

The appeals under discussion were filed by the Revenue against the order of the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) (CIT(A)) at the National Faceless Appeal Centre (NFAC) for the Assessment Years (AYs) 2010-11, 2016-17, and 2017-18. The Bank of Baroda, formerly Vijaya Bank, was the assessee. After an assessment order was passed by the Joint/Addl. Commissioner of Income Tax at Bangalore, the CIT(A) deleted the contested additions, prompting the Revenue to appeal the decision.

The central issue was whether the ITAT’s jurisdiction to adjudicate the appeal should be based on the location of the Assessing Officer who made the original assessment. The assessee’s representative argued that, following the Supreme Court’s ruling in ABC Papers Ltd. [2022], the jurisdiction should lie with the Bangalore Bench of the ITAT, not the Mumbai Bench.