Issue/Justification
Section 255(3) as amended by the Finance Act, 2016 provides that a single member bench may dispose of a case where the total income as computed by the Assessing Officer does not exceed fifty lakh rupees. Earlier the limit was Rs 15 lakhs. The said limit is raised to Rs 50 lakhs due to increase in monetary limit for filing appeal before ITAT and to expedite the process of dispute resolution at the level of ITAT. However, to truly achieve the legislative intent, instead of total income, disputed income may be considered. It would ensure fast track disposal of litigations of small amount.
Suggestion
It is suggested that Section 255 dealing with cases which a single ITAT member can deal may be amended so that limit of Rs 50 lakhs may be considered w.r.t. ‘disputed income’ instead of Total income.
