Income Tax

Not Mentioning DIN on Revisional Order, Violation of CBDT Circular

The ITAT Kolkata recently passed a judgment dated 29th November 2022 in the case titled Shri Mahesh Kumar Sureka vs PCIT-13 wherein the ITAT quashed the revisional order pronounced by the PCIT on the ground of not mentioning the DIN. The article discusses the aspects covered in the case to provide clarity regarding the same.

Facts

The assessee preferred the appeal against the order of PCIT dated 8th January 2021, exercising the revision jurisdiction u/s 263 of the IT Act.

The assessee’s AR challenged the validity of the revision order pronounced by the aforementioned Commissioner under sec – 263 both on merit and the ground of the absence of the Document Identification Number, most commonly known as (DIN) on the impugned order making such document null and void as well as violative of the Circular No.19 of 2019 of CBDT^[1].

The ld. Counsel for the assessee invited the attention of the tribunal towards the CBDT Circular No.19 of 2019 dated 14th August 2019, submitting that the aforesaid circular invalidates the order that doesn’t mention the DIN on the body of the order and the same was deemed to have never been issued.

The ld. Counsel placed reliance on the order Tribunal’s Coordinate Bench in Tata Medical Centre Trust vs CIT [2022] and the case of Smt. Sunita Agarwal vs ITO, decided vide order dated 22 November 2022.

The DR disagreed with the contention of the appellant regarding the non-mentioning of the DIN by submitting that the Circular of the CBDT is discretionary in nature and not binding on the tribunal.

Judgement

The tribunal observed that the issue of the case was directly covered by the decision of the Tribunal’s Coordinate Bench in  Tata Medical Centre Trust vs CIT, which also stated that any order devoid of the DIN should be invalid.

The tribunal also referred to the recent judgement of “Pradeep Goyel vs UOI, wherein the Apex Court referred to the aforementioned circular for implementing the DIN system as well as in view of the larger interest and bringing transparency and accountability in the indirect tax administration directed the UOI and GST council for issuing advisory/instruction/recommendations regarding implementing the digital generation of DIN for all the communications sent by SGST officers to taxpayers, along with further directing the concerned States to consider implementing a system of e-generation of DIN.

The tribunal further referred to the decision of the Kolkata Tribunal’s Coordinate Bench in the case of Smt. Sunita Agarwal vs ITO” observing that the above-mentioned directions/observations made by the Apex Court in “Pradeep Goyel vs UOI” had quashed the order of PCIT on the ground of not mentioning DIN in the said order.

Considering the above-mentioned judgement, the tribunal quashed the revision order on the ground mentioned above.  

Conclusion

As the tribunal quashed the revision order, it did not deliberate on the validity of the order on merits because the said issue had been rendered academic in nature. The judgement firmly lay down that any order devoid of the DIN shall be considered invalid. It is worth mentioning that through this judgement, the tribunal has emphasised the importance of the circulars issued by CBDT, which was also discussed in the aforementioned Supreme Court Case, thereby portraying its support towards the laws of the country.

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