DEVANAND SINGH,PATNA V. ITO, WARD- 4 (2), PATNA

ITA 67/PAT/2025

AI Insights

The case involves Devanand Singh, the appellant, who reported an agricultural income of Rs. 7,05,000 in his income tax return for the assessment year 2016-2017. The Income Tax Officer (ITO) issued notices under various sections of the Income Tax Act to verify the genuineness of this income, but the assessee failed to provide the required documentation. Consequently, the ITO treated the agricultural income as concealed income and added it to the total income of the assessee. The CIT(Appeals) upheld this decision due to the lack of documentary evidence from the assessee. Aggrieved by this, the assessee appealed to the ITAT, which decided to remit the case back to the CIT(Appeals) for a fresh decision on merits, providing the assessee another opportunity to present his case.

• Counselvise Citation: [2025] 140 COUNSELVISE.COM (IT) 711601 (ITAT-PATNA)
• Appeal Type: Income Tax Appeal
• Pronouncement Date: 22-07-2025
• Appeal Filed By: Assessee
• Order Result: Allowed
• Assessment Year: 2016-2017
• Laws Referred To: Income Tax Act
• Result in Favour of: Assessee
• Court: TRIBUNAL
• Keywords: Principle of natural justice
• Section: 147; 148; 142(1); 133(6)

Judgement Text

" ITA No. 67/PAT/2025 (A.Y. 2016-2017) Devanand Singh 1 IN THE INCOME TAX APPELLATE TRIBUNAL, KOLKATA-PATNA ‘e-COURT’, KOLKATA [Hybrid Court Hearing] Before Shri Duvvuru RL Reddy, Vice-President (KZ) I.T.A. No. 67/PAT/2025 Assessment Year: 2016-2017 Devanand Singh,……………..……..….………Appellant Baluan, Patna-800001, Bihar [PAN:ADLPS8382F] -Vs.- Income Tax Officer,…………………………….Respondent Ward-4(2), Patna, Jay Prakash Bhawan, Income Tax Department, Patna-800001, Bihar Appearances by: N o n e, appeared on behalf of the assessee Shri Ashwani Kr. Singal, JCIT, appeared on behalf of the Revenue Date of concluding the hearing: June 23, 2025 Date of pronouncing the order: July 22, 2025 O R D E R The present appeal is directed at the instance of assessee against the order of ld. Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals), National Faceless Appeal Centre (NFAC), Delhi dated 16th December 2024 passed for Assessment Year 2017-18. 2. None appeared on behalf of the assessee at the time of hearing. Therefore, I have decided to dispose of the appeal after Printed from counselvise.com ITA No. 67/PAT/2025 (A.Y. 2016-2017) Devanand Singh 2 hearing the ld. Departmental Representative and perusing the material available on record. 3. Brief facts of the case are that the assessee is an individual, who has shown agricultural income of Rs.7,05,000/- in the income tax return for the year under consideration. For genuineness of the claim of agricultural income, notices under section 133(6) of the Act were issued to the assessee for submission of required information/documents in support of agricultural income but he failed to furnish the same. Hence it was believed that the agricultural income chargeable to tax has escaped assessment within the meaning of section 147 of the Income Tax Act and accordingly notice under section 148 was issued and served on the assessee through ITBA but no compliance was made by the assessee. Again, notice under section 142(1) of the Act was issued but the assessee did not comply with the notice. Thereafter a show- cause letter dated 16.08.2019 was issued to the assessee for compliance as to why Rs.7,05,000/- shown as agricultural income should not be treated as income from other sources on account of non-submission of documentary evidence in support of agricultural income for the year under consideration. However, the assessee ignored the show-cause notice. Finally, the ld. Assessing Officer treated the entire agricultural income of Rs.7,05,000/- as concealed income of the assessee and added to the total income of the assessee. On being aggrieved, the assessee preferred an appeal before the ld. CIT(Appeals). Printed from counselvise.com ITA No. 67/PAT/2025 (A.Y. 2016-2017) Devanand Singh 3 4. The ld. CIT(Appeals) dismissed the appeal of the assessee confirming the order of ld. Assessing Officer as the assessee failed to produce any documentary evidence in support of his claim. 5. On being aggrieved, the assessee preferred an appeal before the ITAT. It was the submission of the ld. Departmental Representative that sufficient opportunity was being provided to the assessee. Therefore, the ld. CIT(Appeals) has no other option except dismissing the appeal ex-parte and he pleaded to uphold the order passed by the ld. CIT(Appeals). 6. I have heard the ld. Departmental Representative and perused the material available on record. By considering the totality of the facts and circumstances and in order to ensure the principle of natural justice, I am of the view that it is a fit case to provide one more opportunity to the assessee to decide the case on merit. Therefore, I remit the matter back to the file of ld. CIT(Appeals) with a direction to dispose of the appeal without any inference on the observations of earlier order passed by him and to decide it afresh on merit. At the same breath, I also hereby caution the assessee to promptly co-operate with the proceedings before the Ld. CIT(Appeals) failing which the Ld. CIT(Appeals) shall be at liberty to pass appropriate order in accordance with law and merits of the case, based on the materials available on the record. Thus, the grounds raised by the assessee in the appeal are allowed for statistical purposes. Printed from counselvise.com ITA No. 67/PAT/2025 (A.Y. 2016-2017) Devanand Singh 4 7. In the result, the appeal of the assessee is allowed for statistical purposes. Order pronounced in the open Court on 22/07/2025. Sd/- (Duvvuru RL Reddy) Vice-President (KZ) Kolkata, the 22nd day of July, 2025 Copies to :(1) Devanand Singh, Baluan, Patna-800001, Bihar (2) Income Tax Officer, Ward-4(2), Patna, Jay Prakash Bhawan, Income Tax Department, Patna-800001, Bihar (3) CIT(A), NFAC, Delhi; (4) CIT - , Kolkata; (5) The Departmental Representative; (6) Guard File TRUE COPY By order Assistant Registrar, Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Kolkata Benches, Kolkata Laha/Sr. P.S. Printed from counselvise.com "