Delhi High Court upholds validity of revision petition

Delhi High Court upholds validity of revision petition

The Commissioner of Income Tax had dismissed the request on the basis of the limitation period

The Delhi High Court has upheld the validity of a revision petition. It ruled that the time spent in prosecuting a tax appeal before an authority, devoid of jurisdiction, would be excluded while computing the limitation period for filing a revision petition under the Income Tax Act, 1961.

A two-judge bench, comprising Justice Manmohan and Justice Navin Chawla was considering a writ petition that challenged the order passed by the Commissioner of Income Tax (International Taxation).

The CIT had dismissed the assessee's revision petition under the IT Act on the ground of limitation. The assessee also sought direction from the court on merits after condoning the delay in filing the petition.

The counsel for the assessee submitted that his client had filed an appeal against a March 2018 order passed under the Act, under a bona fide mistake of the law that the said order was appealable.

The appeal was pursued until June 2019 when he came to know that the appeal was not maintainable, as he had not paid the tax determined in the order. The counsel submitted that, immediately thereafter, the assessee withdrew the appeal and filed a revision petition under the June 2019 Act. He stated that the impugned order dismissing the revision petition of the assessee as time-barred was erroneous since there was sufficient cause for the delay.

The counsel for the revenue authorities submitted that the reasoning given by the assessee for seeking condonation of the delay in filing the revision petition was untenable in the law.

On analyzing the facts, the court held, "In the opinion of this court, Section 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 is attracted to the facts of the present case, and the petitioner is entitled to exclusion of time spent in prosecuting the proceeding bona fide in a court without jurisdiction."

The high court observed that if the time spent by the assessee in prosecuting the appeal under the Act was excluded, the revision petition would be within the limitation period. Allowing the writ petition, the court remanded the matter to the CIT to decide the assessee's revision petition on merits in accordance with the law.