E-filing of appeals is made mandatory for the people who file their return of income electronically.

Form no. 35 is required to be filed. The old form has been replaced by the new Form No. 35.

1. New form no. 35 will be provided on the website
2. The new Form No. 35 should be duly filled.
3. The statement of facts and grounds of appeal are to be filled in the form no. 35 in the relevant columns itself.
4. Each of the grounds of appeal must be less than 100 words.
5. The statement of facts must be less than 1000 words.
6. The scanned copies of the order appealed against, challan for appeal fees and
7. Notice of demand is required to be attached.
8. Requirement of Digital Signatures for filing Appeals
All of these attachments must be in pdf/zip format. The total attachments in must not exceed 50 mb in size.

1. . (a) in the case of a person who is required to furnish return of income electronically under sub-rule(3) of rule 12
   
2. (1) by furnishing the form electronically under digital signature, if the return of income is furnished under digital signature
   
3. (ii) by furnishing the form electronically through electronic verification code in a case not covered under sub-clause .
   
4. (b) in a case where the assessee has the option to furnish the return of income in paper form, by furnishing the form electronically in accordance with clause (a) of subrule(2) or in paper form
   
5. . The form of appeal referred to in sub-rule (1), shall be verified by the person who is authorised to verify the return of income under section 140 of the Act, as applicable to the assessee
   
6. Any document accompanying Form No. 35 shall be furnished in the manner in which the said form is furnished.
   

Procedure for verification of the identity of the person furnishing the e-filed form 35 for appeals to the CIT (Appeals), using EVC, has been notified by the CBDT/ IT Deptt., vide Notification No. 5/2016 DIT (S) dt 6th April, 2016, as under:

1. The Electronic Verification Code (EVC) would verify the identity of the person furnishing the form (hereinafter called ’Verifier’) and would be generated on the e-Filing website or as otherwise indicated. As specified in sub-rule (3) of rule 45 the Verifier shall be the person who is authorized to verify the return of income under section 140 of the Act as applicable to the assessee. Where the Verifier represents an entity (i.e. HUF/ Firm/ AOP etc.) then the Verifier should be registered in the e-Filing website as a Principal Contact of the entity
2. The EVC generation process may vary based on the risk category of the assessee (the term ‘assessee’ is as defined in clause (7) of section 2 of the Act), the method of accessing the e-Filing website or interface with third party authenticating entity. The EVC would be unique for an Assessee-PAN or Assessee-TAN and will not be valid for any other PAN or TAN, as the case may be, at the time of furnishing of the form. One EVC can be used to validate one form of the assessee irrespective of the assessment year. The EVC will be stored against the Assessee-PAN along with other verification details. The EVC will be valid for 72 hours or as otherwise specified. The Verifier may use more than one mode to obtain EVC and can generate the EVC multiple times.
3. mode of generation of EVC, Validation of EVC and Data Structure of EVC shall be same as specified by the Notification No. 2/2015 dated 13th July, 2015 and the Notification No. 1/2016 dated 19th January, 2016 issued by the Principal Director General of Income-tax (Systems).

It may be noted that the Income Tax Department has enabled EVC facility for online filing of appeal before Commissioner (Appeal) in Form 35 for taxpayers required to file appeals using Digital Signatures (DSC) on 4th April 2016 and for taxpayers not required to file appeals using Digital Signatures (DSC) on 24th May 2016.