Bombay HC Cancels Law Proceedings on Assessee Due to Portal Failure

No prejudice to the taxpayer shall take place including revoking of the assessment proceedings if the assessee is unable to update the income tax portal, the Division bench of the Bombay High Court ruled.

For the applicant, Advocate Nishant Thakkar appeared, and for the respondents Advocate Suresh Kumar appeared.

Kumar Agro Products Pvt. Ltd. has filed a writ petition against the order issued by the Assessing officer (AO) excluding providing the chance for a hearing. Post assessing proceeding the AO needed some information on claims furnished via the applicant. The applicant asks for time to submit the information however the respondent is unable to update their portal. Post to the assessment order was issued via the department.

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The counsel of the applicant Nishant Thakkar provided that, the applicant asks for the extension of time via virtue of communication on September 22nd, 2022 for providing its reply, which was permitted vide communication on September 23rd, 2022. Till 11:00 a.m. 26th September 2022, the time was extended. Despite when the applicant agreed to upload its answer to show cause notice the respondents were lost to update their portal to show the time extension up to 26th September 2022

Dhiraj Singh Thakur and Kamal Khata, division bench members revoked the order that the respondent has made dated September 29th, 2022, and specified that “A fresh order be passed after the Petitioner is granted an opportunity to upload its response to the show cause notice dated 22nd September 2022, for which the requisite portal may be made available to the Petitioner. An opportunity of being heard may also be provided to the Petitioner.”