Tribunal had no jurisdiction to decide penalty on merits by itself: Gujarat High Court

State of Gujarat v. Hitarth Corporation - [2018] 91 taxmann.com 115 (Gujarat) 

The department imposed the penalty on the assessee. The assessee filed an appeal before the Appellate Commissioner against the penalty order. The Appellate Commissioner dismissed the appeal of assessee on the ground that the assessee did not fulfil the requirement of pre-deposit. The assessee filed an appeal in the Tribunal and informed the Tribunal that the entire amount of tax, interest and pre-deposit had been deposited. The Tribunal deleted such penalty imposed by Assessing Authority. The revenue filed an appeal in the High Court. 

The High Court held that the Tribunal had no right to delete the penalty levied by department as the appeal was filed only for pre- deposit issue. Therefore, the impugned order passed by Tribunal was to be set aside.