Case Law Details
PCIT Vs Dinesh Kumar Bansal (HUF) (Calcutta High Court)
The Court : In all these applications the revenue has sought for condonation of delay in filing the appeals before this Court under Section 260A of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (the Act, in brevity) challenging the orders passed by the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Kolkata (the Tribunal).
2. For the purpose of disposal of the applications filed under Section 5 of the Limitation Act, it may not be necessary to go into the factual aspects nor as to what would be the relevant assessment year which was subject matter before the Tribunal. Equally the length of delay may also not be very relevant factor as the submissions have been made on either side on the issue as to whether the Court should exercise discretion in condoning the delay in filing the appeals before this Court. There are cases where delay is only 90 days, there are also cases where delay is more than 300 days. As has been settled in various decisions, length of delay is always not a very relevant factor as even a meagre delay if shown to be on account of certain mala fide reasons, the Court will refuse to exercise discretion and will dismiss the applications. In other cases, where delay is substantial, the Court finds that sufficient cause has been shown and for reasons to be assigned will exercise discretion and condone the delay.
3. The case of the revenue is that the matters which are subject matter of the appeal are popularly known as ‘Penny Stock Cases’ and the Tribunal has granted certain relief to the assessee largely following the decision in Swati Bajaj and in the case of Manju Agarwal vs. ITO in ITA No. 2662/Kol/2018 and other similar cases. In some of the impugned orders, there has been findings rendered by the Tribunal on the facts of the particular case but we find in most of the cases the Tribunal has merely extracted its earlier decisions and granted relief to the assessee. As we are considering the applications filed under Section 5 of the Limitation Act, we refrain from going into the merits of the decision taken by the Tribunal and we shall enter into the merits only, if we are satisfied that the delay in filing the appeal has to be condoned.
4. The learned standing counsel appearing for the revenue contends that the cases on hand expose a large financial scam which is not only confined to Kolkata but it is spread over throughout the country. In this regard, learned standing counsel places reliance on the report of the Principal Director of Income Tax (Investigation), Kolkata dated 27.04.2015. This report is pressed into service to show that large scale financial scam had taken place and SEBI has also suspended the scripts of various companies in which the assessees had effected transactions and by providing bogus accommodation entries of long term capital gain/short term capital gain, substantial loss has been caused to the revenue which is as of now is conservatively estimated as more than Rs.38,000 crores. Therefore, it is submitted that the Court should take all these factors and exercise discretion and condone the delay. Further it is submitted that the Hon’ble Supreme Court in miscellaneous application No.21 of 2022 in Suo Motu Writ Petition (C) No. 3 of 2020 by order dated January 10, 2022 clarified that the period from 15.03.2020 till 28.02.2022 shall stand excluded in computing the period of limitation prescribed under various enactments for the purpose of instituting proceedings before various forum. It is submitted by learned standing counsel that though in some of the cases the benefit of the order passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court may not be directly applicable, yet the Court can take into consideration that on account of the pandemic situation, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has excluded the period from 15.03.2020 till 28.02.2022 for the purpose of computing limitation for filing petitions or appeals etc. Therefore, it is submitted that a broader view may be taken in the matter, considering the sensitivity of the issue and wide ramification which has been brought out on account of the investigation, which is still in progress.
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