Mr. Sham Basheer V. The Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) -3 and Income Tax Officer, Ward-4

WA/210/2024

AI Insights

The case involves Mr. Sham Basheer, the appellant, who challenged the dismissal of his Writ Petition by a Single Judge of the High Court, which pertained to the dismissal of his appeals against assessment orders for the years 2011-2012 to 2014-2015 by the Appellate Authority. The primary contention was the lack of opportunity for a hearing, as no communication was allegedly sent to the appellant regarding the hearing. The respondents argued that notices were sent to the latest email address provided by the appellant. However, the appellant's counsel clarified that the email used was that of a former employee. The court found that the Department should have used all provided email addresses to ensure proper communication.

• Counselvise Citation: [2024] 140 COUNSELVISE.COM (IT) 676510 (HC-KERALA)
• Appeal Type: Others
• Pronouncement Date: 21-02-2024
• Assessment Year: misc
• Laws Referred To: Income Tax Act, 1961
• Result in Favour of: Others
• Court: HIGH COURT
• Department Lawyers: JOSE JOSEPH
• Assessee Lawyers: K LATHA
• Keywords: Appellate Authority; Email Communication; Income Tax; Natural Justice; Writ Appeal
• Section: 143(3)

Judgement Text

"IN THE HIGH COURT OF KERALA AT ERNAKULAM PRESENT THE HONOURABLE DR. JUSTICE A.K.JAYASANKARAN NAMBIAR & THE HONOURABLE DR. JUSTICE KAUSER EDAPPAGATH WEDNESDAY, THE 21ST DAY OF FEBRUARY 2024 / 2ND PHALGUNA, 1945 WA NO. 210 OF 2024 AGAINST THE JUDGMENT DATED 01.02.2024 IN WP(C) 38347/2023 OF HIGH COURT OF KERALA APPELLANT/APPELLANT/PETITIONER: MR. SHAM BASHEER, AGED 52 YEARS ASHIK MANZIL, NEAR VIMAL HOSPITAL, ETTUMANOOR, KOTTAYAM, , KERALA, INDIA., PIN – 686631 BY ADV K.LATHA RESPONDENTS/RESPONDENTS/RESPONDENTS: 1 THE COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX (APPEALS) -3, OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX (APPEALS), CIT (A), COCHIN, PIN – 682003 2 INCOME TAX OFFICER, WARD-4, OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX, KOTTAYAM, PIN - 686001 BY SRI.JOSE JOSEPH, SC THIS WRIT APPEAL HAVING COME UP FOR ADMISSION ON 21.02.2024, THE COURT ON THE SAME DAY DELIVERED THE FOLLOWING: :2: W ..A.No.210 of 2024 JUDGMENT Dr. A.K.Jayasankaran Nambiar, J. The petitioner in WP(C). No.38347 of 2023 is the appellant herein aggrieved by the judgment dated 01.02.2024 of the learned Single Judge dismissing the Writ Petition. 2. The brief facts necessary for the disposal of the Writ Appeal are as follows: The Writ Petition was filed by the appellant, who is an assessee under the provisions of the Income Tax Act, 1961, challenging Ext.P2 series of orders whereby the appeal filed by the appellant against assessment orders for the assessment years 2011-2012 to 2014-2015 were dismissed by the Appellate Authority. The limited ground taken in the Writ Petition for impugning Ext.P2 series of orders was that the appellant was not afforded an opportunity of hearing and that no communication for hearing was sent to the appellant by the Appellate Authority before passing the orders impugned in the Writ Petition. 3. Through a statement filed on behalf of the respondents, it was :3: W ..A.No.210 of 2024 pointed out that the appellant had given as many as five e-mail ids to the Department, and the latest e-mail id given by the appellant at the time of filing the appeal against the assessment order for the year 2017-2018 was the one to which the notices of hearing had been sent by the Department. It was contended, therefore, that the appellant could not be heard to say that there was no communication of the notices of hearing to it. The learned Single Judge found force in the stand taken by the respondents and held that inasmuch as the communication in respect of the hearing of the appeal had been sent to the e-mail id indicated in the appeal against the assessment order for 2017-2018, it had to be seen as sufficient for complying with the rules of natural justice as far as the appellant herein was concerned. The Writ Petition was, therefore, dismissed by the learned Single Judge. 4. In the appeal before us, it is the submission of Smt. Latha K, the learned counsel for the appellant, that the e-mail to which the communications were addressed by the respondents belonged to an erstwhile employee of the appellant who had since left the service of the appellant. It is pointed out that it was under these circumstances that different e-mail ids had been indicated in the appeals filed for various assessment years and an indication given in the formats of those appeals that it would be preferable that the notices in connection :4: W ..A.No.210 of 2024 with the hearing were sent by post. The learned Standing counsel for the respondents, however, would point out that the statutory provisions enable the Income Tax Department to serve notice to an assessee through e-mail, and hence, it may not be proper for an assessee to insist on a service of notice by post. While we are in agreement with the learned Standing counsel on this latter aspect, we find that if it is the stand of the Department that notices to the assessee will be served only through e-mail, then in our view, there would have been no prejudice caused to the Department if they served those notices in all the e-mail addresses furnished by the assessee at the various stages of the litigation since, by following such a procedure, the Department would ensure that no assessee would come to Court complaining that notices were not sent to them through the e-mail ids indicated by them in the various communications with the Department. Inasmuch as in the instant case, we find that the communications to the appellant were not in the addresses indicated in the appeal memorandum, we set aside the orders impugned in the Writ Petition and direct the Appellate Authority to issue a fresh notice of hearing in respect of the various appeals (assessment years 2011-2012 to 2014 to 2015) in the e-mail address [e-mail] and thereafter, pass final orders in the appeal, after hearing the appellant or his authorised representatives in the matter. The fresh orders, as directed, shall be passed within one month :5: W ..A.No.210 of 2024 from the date of receipt of a copy of the judgment. Before parting with this case, we take note of the concern expressed by the learned Standing counsel for the Income Tax Department that a practice has evolved among assessees, of furnishing different e-mail ids at various stages of interactions with the department, which has caused difficulties for the Department while issuing communications to the assessee. We feel that the Department should evolve a procedure whereby the e-mail id's furnished by the assessee's are regularly updated after confirmation with the assessee, so that at any given point in time, an assessee can only insist upon a maximum of three e-mail ids to which communications intended for him may be addressed. Sd/- DR. A.K.JAYASANKARAN NAMBIAR JUDGE Sd/- DR. KAUSER EDAPPAGATH JUDGE mns "