Meghalaya High Court: The Division Bench of Sanjib Banerjee, CJ. and W. Diengdoh, J. disposed of a petition holding that the assessee should be given a minimum of 7 days’ time to respond to the reassessment notice.
A notice under Section 148 of the Income-Tax Act, 1961 had been issued without following the mandatory procedure under Section 148-A thereof. An incidental issue as to jurisdiction had also been raised.
According to the assessee, the relevant notice that ought to have afforded the assessee seven days’ time to respond thereto was issued to an email id that was used for filing the return for the assessment year 2017-18. The assessee submits that the notice pertains to the assessment year 2018-19 and, by then, the email id of the assessee had been changed. The assessee further informed that the notice was physically delivered at the address of the assessee on 30-03-2022 and, even before the reply could be issued, the notice under Section 148 of the Act was issued by recording that the assessee had not responded to the previous notice.
The Court opined that since the scheme of the relevant provisions required a previous notice and seven days’ time to be afforded to the assessee to respond thereto and it appeared that such procedure may not have been followed in this case, the subsequent notice under Section 148 of the Act and the order pertaining thereto should be set aside and the matter be restored to the initial stage.
The Court held that the assessee will have seven days to respond to the initial notice and the response will be considered by the appropriate authority before passing any order or taking any further steps. The question of jurisdiction was left open for the assessee to urge before the Department.
[Highgrowth Commodities Trade (P) Ltd. v. Principal Commr. of Income Tax, 2022 SCC OnLine Megh 253, decided on 14-06-2022]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Mr Abhratosh Mazumdar, Sr.Adv with Mr Kaushik Goswami, Sr.Adv Mr Avra Mazumdar, Ms Shruti Swaika, Ms Anakshi Neog, Ms M. Kakoty, Advocates, for the Petitioner;
Dr N. Mozika, ASG with Ms K. Gurung, Advocates, for the Respondents.
*Suchita Shukla, Editorial Assistant has reported this brief.
