By Jagdish D. Shah, Jagdish T. Punjabi, Chartered Accountants
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Part B — Unreported Decisions
(Full texts of the following Tribunal decisions are available
at the Society’s office on written request. For members desiring that the
Society mails a copy to them, Rs.30 per decision will be charged for
photocopying and postage.)
18 ITO v. PIC (Gujarat) Ltd.
ITAT Ahmedabad Bench ‘B’
Before I. S. Verma (JM) and
N. S. Saini (AM)
ITA No. 3058/Ahd./2002
A.Y. : 1990-91. Decided on : 4-1-2008
Counsel for revenue/assessee : R. I. Patel/
Jitendra Jain and Sachin Romani
S. 139(5) read with S. 132(9) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 —
Return of loss filed based on un-audited accounts considered as defective —
Assessee asked to file audited accounts within 15 days and rectify the defect —
Assessee requested for two months time and filed the accounts within the time
requested for — Without rejecting the assessee’s request, AO treated the
original return filed as defective and the revised return filed as belated
return — Whether AO justified — Held, No.
Per I. S. Verma :
Facts :
For the year under appeal the return of income, declaring
loss of Rs.12 lacs, was filed based on the basis of the un-audited accounts,
which according to the AO, was defective return. Hence, by notice u/s.139(a),
dated 22-1-1991 (served on 1-2-1991), the assessee was asked to file the audited
accounts within 15 days and rectify the defect. By its letter dated 15-2-1991,
the assessee requested the AO to extend the time for rectifying the defect by
two months. Thereafter, the audited accounts were filed on 15-3-1991 and the
revised (loss) return was also filed on 25-3-1991. The revised return was
processed u/s.143(1) and the refund due to the assessee was granted.
Later on, the return was processed u/s.143(3) and the loss
claimed by the assessee was rejected, on the ground that the original return
filed was defective, hence invalid. And the revised return filed was treated as
original and since it was filed late, the carry forward of loss was disallowed.
On appeal, the CIT(A) directed the AO to consider the assessee’s revised return
as valid.
Held :
The Tribunal noted that the assessee’s request for extension
of time was if rejected by the AO, the order of rejection was never intimated to
the assessee. Therefore, it held that the CIT(A) was quite justified in
accepting the assessee’s plea that the original return was a valid return and,
and therefore, revised return was also valid.
