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Income Tax--General Topic

Whether the Assessee Shall Be Penalized for The Inadvertence Caused by His Counsel ?

Tejaswini Bobde

There are 'N' numbers of cases where the Assessee has given letter of authority/vakalatnama for appointing the Counsel in order to get the consultation and represent him during such technical proceedings initiated under the Act which are beyond the knowledge of the Assessee. However, due the existence of disputes between the Assessee and his Counsel, the Counsel either does not hears the case and/or misrepresenting the facts of the Assessee's case vindictively with the intension to penalize the Assessee. Now a days, it is also being observed that even after the submission of the details of income and financial details so called by the Counsel himself for filing the income tax returns and other forms, the Counsel is not filing the same within time prescribed and resultantly, the Assessee gets penalized, missed to claim deduction/exemptions/reliefs provided under the Act and raising huge tax demand accordingly. The learned author discusses the aspect that whether a litigant can be made to suffer due to the mistake of a counsel. She concludes that when there is lapse on part of the Counsel, the Assessee should not be put in trouble unless it is shown that the blame put on Counsel with mala fide intentions in order to cover up mistake/lapse on the Assessee's part.

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