Assessing officer can't be part of tax appellate body deciding the appeal

An income-tax commissioner, responsible for an assessment order, cannot be a part of the body that decides the appeal against the same order, a tax tribunal has said. The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), the second appellate forum that decides on tax disputes, said that involving a tax official in deciding an appeal against an assessment order would be against the principles of natural justice, especially if the official had been party to the same assessment order. The ITAT gave this order last month on an appeal filed by Lionbridge Technologies against an order of the Dispute Resolution Panel (DRP), a body set up exclusively under the Income-tax Act for resolving transfer pricing related disputes.

Source: Economic Times