Home Case Index All Cases Income Tax Income Tax + AT Income Tax - 2019 (11) TMI AT This
Forgot password New User/ Regiser ⇒ Register to get Live Demo
2019 (11) TMI 694 - ITAT MUMBAIStay petition rejected - appeal maintainable before this Tribunal or not - appellant directed to pay 20% of the demand as per Circular No. 1914 r.w. on dt. 29-02-2016 - HELD THAT:- The question of stay application before the Tribunal thus normally comes into play only when the demands in question are impugned in appeal before us. That apart, the stay under section 220(6) can only be granted by the Assessing Officer, and not by his supervisory authorities such as the Principal Commissioner of Income Tax. As a matter of fact, an order passed by the Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, declining grant of stay during the currency of appeal before the first appellate authority i.e. CIT(A), is only an administrative order. The occasion to seek invocation of such an administrative indulgence comes after the Assessing Officer declines to exercise his powers of granting stay under section 220(6), and, perhaps for this reason, it is somewhat inappropriately described as an order under section 220(6). Such an order is not an appealable order before this Tribunal; the law does not provide so. The only possibility of the Tribunal coming into picture, so far as the stay of demands during the pendency of first appeal before the CIT(A), is in a situation in which the CIT(A) rejects the stay petition filed by the assessee. That proposition too is highly contentious, to say the minimum, but let’s not bother about that hypothetical situation as on now. Present appeal is not an appeal maintainable before this Tribunal. Not only that the appeal is ill conceived, but, even after pointing out the legal position, rather than explaining his stand or expressing remorse for having filed this appeal, the assessee did not even bother to attend the court proceedings any further, and submitted this note pointing out, on the basis of, what appears to be, fallacious logic, as to why special bench is required to be constituted in this case. Such an approach cannot meet any judicial approval, including by this forum. We deprecate this kind of an approach.
|