The court found a breach of natural justice due to the respondent's failure to consider the petitioner's request for adjournment, resulting in the setting aside of the assessment order.

JUDGMENT

[Court hearing convened via video-conferencing on account of COVID-19]

Rajiv Shakdher, J. (Oral)

CM APPL. No.16785/2021

1. Allowed, subject to just exceptions.

CM APPL. No.16786/2021

2. The prayer made in the captioned application is to grant extension of time for deposit of court-fee and for filing sworn/notarised/affirmed affidavits. The captioned application is disposed of with a direction to the petitioner to place on record the duly sworn/notarised/affirmed affidavit and to deposit the requisite court-fee, within three days of the resumption of the normal and usual work pattern by this court.

W.P.(C) 5418/2021 and CM APPL. No.16784/2021 [Application filed on behalf of the petitioner seeking stay on the operation of the impugned assessment order and consequent proceedings thereto]

3. Issue notice. Mr. Ajit Sharma, who appears on advance notice on behalf of the respondents, accepts service.

3.1. Mr. Sharma says that he does not wish to file a counter-affidavit, and would rely upon the record placed before the court, for the purposes of the adjudication of this writ petition.

4. The petition is, therefore, taken up for hearing and final disposal with the consent of the counsels for the parties.

5. Via this writ petition, challenge is laid to the assessment order dated 23.04.2021, passed by respondent no. 1, under Section 143 (3) read with Section 144B of the INCOME TAX ACT , 1961 (in short `the Act'). The impugned assessment order concerns the assessment year (in short `AY') 2018-2019. Besides this, challenge is also laid by the petitioner, to the notice of demand, issued under Section 156 of the Act, and the notice for initiation of penalty proceedings issued under Section 274 read with Section 271 AAC (1) of the Act. These orders are also of the even date, i.e., 23.04.2021.

6. Mr. Rohit Jain, who appears on behalf of the petitioner, says that apart from anything else, the show cause notice-cum-draft assessment order dated 20.04.2021, required the petitioner to file its response by 23:59 hours on 23.04.2021.

6.1. Mr. Jain says that, since the city was under lockdown on account of the pandemic, a request for adjournment was made on 23.04.2021 at about 12:59 hours, via the designated e-portal, maintained by the respondents. In support of this plea, Mr. Jain relies upon the documents appended on pages 99 and 100 of the electronic paper book.

6.2. Furthermore, Mr. Jain says that respondent no. 1 proceeded to pass the impugned assessment order on 23.04.2021, without dealing with the request for adjournment and without waiting for the timeframe given in the show cause notice-cum-draft assessment order dated 20.04.2021, to expire.

6.3. It is also Mr. Jain's contention that the impugned assessment order erroneously refers to the date of the show cause notice as 16.03.2021, whereas the show cause notice-cum-draft assessment order, issued to the petitioner, is dated 20.04.2021. In this context, our attention has been drawn to paragraph 7 of the impugned assessment order.

7. Mr. Sharma, on the other hand, relies upon the impugned assessment order to resist the petition.

8. Having heard the learned counsels for the parties and perused the record, according to us, at this juncture, we are not called upon to deal with the merits of the case.

8.1. The petitioner's case is that there has been a breach of the principles of natural justice, inasmuch as respondent no. 1 failed to deal with the petitioner's request for a short adjournment. The petitioner, as noticed above, has, correctly, pointed out that there has been an undue haste by responden