Sahara India Tax Appeals To Be Heard By Delhi ITAT Despite AO's Lucknow Jurisdiction: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has allowed a batch of writ petitions filed by Sahara India group companies and directed that their pending income tax appeals be heard by the Delhi Bench of ITAT , even though the Assessing Officer (AO) having jurisdiction over the assessees was situated in Lucknow.

The Division Bench of Justices Dinesh Mehta and Aditi Choudhary noted that more than 100 appeals concerning the assessee's group companies were already being heard by the Delhi Bench and that both the assessees as well as the Revenue had jointly expressed their preference for the appeals to be heard in Delhi.

The petitions challenged orders passed by the Delhi Bench of the ITAT holding that the appeals were not maintainable before it in view of the Supreme Court's judgment in Principal Commissioner of Income Tax-1 v. ABC Papers Ltd.

Petitioners argued that since the impugned orders had been passed by the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals), Delhi, the corresponding appeals could be maintained before the Delhi Bench.

The High Court however noted that "technically", the Tribunal's view could not be said to be erroneous in light of Rule 4 of the Income-tax (Appellate Tribunal) Rules, 1963 and the relevant Standing Order, since Petitioners' place of business as well as the office of the Assessing Officer were situated in Lucknow.

The Court observed that the appeals had come to be decided by the Delhi CIT(A) because, during the pendency of the appeals, jurisdiction had been conferred upon the CIT(A)-I, New Delhi under Section 120 of the Income Tax Act.

In that earlier matter, the Court had held that the Delhi ITAT could not sit over an administrative order of the President of the Tribunal transferring appeals from the Lucknow Bench to the Delhi Bench.

In the present batch, the Court said,

"Since more than 100 appeals of the assessee's group companies are being heard by the Tribunal at Delhi and also because both the assessees and the Revenue have jointly submitted that they would prefer that the appeals are heard by the Tribunal at Delhi, as a special case."

As such, the Court allowed the petitions and restored the appeals to the Delhi Bench.

For Petitioners: Advocates Aditya Vohra and Shubhra Goyal, Naresh Kapila and Sanjeeva Kr. Gupta,

For Respondent: Ruchir Bhatia, SSC with Anant Mann, JSC and Pratyaksh Gupta, JSC