Suresh Kumar Paruchuri Vs CIT (Karnataka High Court)
Karnataka High Court held that notices or communication issued by department sent to old email address of the petitioner instead of updated email address not justifiable. Accordingly, order not sustained in view of no proper notice and no proper opportunity of fair hearing.
Facts- Petitioner is an individual. The petitioner’s case was selected for scrutiny under CASS. It is the contention of petitioner that communications and notices were issued during assessment proceedings were sent to the email address of petitioner’s former Auditor, who was replaced by the present Auditor of petitioner. It is the contention of the petitioner that due to inadvertence and bonafide error, email address of the current Auditor was not updated at the relevant time in the departmental records, thereby the petitioner remained unaware of the notices/communications sent to the earlier auditor by the respondent/Revenue with regard to the proceedings, due to which, the petitioner could not respond to the notices or submit required information or objections during the assessment proceedings.
Conclusion- Held that the notices were sent to the earlier email address of the petitioner, even after that the correspondence made by the petitioner by changing the email address to “[email protected]”. Once the email address is changed and it is within the knowledge of the department, the department ought to have issued notice or communication to the petitioner to the present email address to facilitate him to contest the case and provide fair opportunity of hearing and decide the matter in accordance with law. Admittedly, this is not done in the present case, therefore the impugned order passed by the respondents cannot be sustained in view of no proper notice and no proper opportunity of fair hearing provided to the petitioner. This petition will have to be allowed on this sole ground itself.
