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2014 (12) TMI 676 - AT - Income TaxApplication for condonation of delay of 1163 days – Asseessee contended that the delay was because of the massive change in the taxation department of assessee Company - Held that:- In Vedabai alias Vaijayanatabai Baburao Patil v. Shantaram Baburao Patil (supra), the Hon'ble [2001 (7) TMI 117 - SUPREME Court ] it has been held that in exercising discretion u/s 5 of the Limitation Act the courts should adopt a pragmatic approach - no hard and fast rule can be laid down in this regard - The court has to exercise the discretion on the facts of each case keeping in mind that in construing the expression "sufficient cause", the principle of advancing substantial justice is of prime importance - the appeal has been filed by delay of 1163 days and as per affidavit he joined post of Manager-Taxation on 29.02.2009 and while culling out the details/information in connection with filing of appeal against the order of the CIT(A) levying penalty in respect of proceedings u/s 147 for AY 2002- 03 - he found four sets of draft appeal documents for AY 2002-03 - condonation application has been submitted by his predecessors i.e. Mr. Suresh Chawla and Mr. Rohit Bhatla who were working as AVP Taxation and Manager Taxation respectively and left the assessee company in October 2007 and January 2007 respectively but the appeal could not be filed on time, therefore, delay was caused. There is an extraordinary delay of 1163 days in filing this appeal for which assessee has to show "sufficient cause" but the cause shown by the assessee may be considered a "sufficient cause" for the intervening period when old officers left or parted with the company and till new Manager Taxation Mr. Hemant Gupta joined, meaning thereby from October 2007 to 29.2.2008, but there was no "sufficient cause" which could justify or properly explain the delay which occurred from last date of filing the appeal as per statutory provisions of the Act to departure of Shri Suresh Chawla – AVP – Taxation i.e. from 17.6.2006 to October 2007 and from joining of Mr. Hemant K. Gupta – Manager Taxation to the date of filing this appeal i.e. from 29.2.2008 to 12.8.2009. From impugned order of the CIT(A) dated 30.3.2006. The date on which Mr. Hemant Kumar Gupta found relevant papers in a file folder is neither mentioned in the application for condonation of delay nor in the affidavit of Mr. Gupta - "sufficient cause" as shown by the assessee is not acceptable and if such kind of extraordinary delay is condoned without any sufficient cause, then the provisions of prescribed limitation period would become otiose and infructuous – thus, the assessee miserably failed in establishing and substantiating "sufficient cause", as required by the statutory provisions of the Act, for the extraordinary delay of 1163 days – delay not condoned – Decided against assessee.
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