My reassessment for an old year was restarted in 2022 on the strength of a Board instruction rather than a fresh notice. What does that instruction actually say, and how much of it is the Supreme Court's?
This is the instruction, issued under s.119 a week after Union of India v Ashish Agarwal, that told every Assessing Officer how to work out that judgment on the roughly ninety thousand notices issued under the old reassessment law between 1 April 2021 and 30 June 2021. It directs that the judgment applies to all those notices whether or not they were challenged; that the notices travel back to their original dates and new s.149 is then applied at that point, so a fresh s.148 notice may issue for assessment years 2013-14 to 2015-16 only under s.149(1)(b) and for 2016-17 and 2017-18 under s.149(1)(a); that information and material need not be given at all where escaped income for 2013-14 to 2015-16 is less than fifty lakh rupees; and that in the remaining cases the material was to be supplied by 2 June 2022, the assessee had two weeks to reply, and an order under s.148A(d) was to follow with the approval of the specified authority under s.151. Three of those directions go further than the judgment does, and the courts have said so.
Decided by the CBDT Circulars & Instructions (Central Board of Direct Taxes, ITJ Section, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, acting under s.119. The instruction is signed as printed by Tanay Sharma, DCIT(OSD), ITJ-I, and is copied to the Principal Chief Commissioners of Income Tax and the Directors General of Income Tax with a request to bring it to the attention of all officers.) on 2022-05-11, reported as Instruction No. 01/2022 [F. No. 279/Misc./M-51/2022-ITJ], dated 11 May 2022. It bears on section 148, section 148A, section 148A(b), section 148A(d), section 149, section 149(1)(a), section 149(1)(b), section 151, section 147, section 119, section TOLA 2020 s.3, section Constitution Art. 142, section 147A of the Income Tax Act 1961, in Reassessment & Reopening and Assessment & Scrutiny matters.
Every reassessment that was restarted in the summer of 2022 for an old year began with this document rather than with a fresh application of mind, so a practitioner defending one needs to know exactly what it says and exactly where it exceeds the judgment it claims to implement. It is binding on the officer and not on you, which makes it useful in two opposite directions. Where it helps — paragraph 7.1, which directs that information and material need not be supplied for assessment years 2013-14 to 2015-16 below fifty lakh rupees — you may hold the department to it, because an assessee may rely on an instruction that is beneficial. Where it hurts — paragraph 6.1's travelling back in time, and paragraph 8.1's sweeping statement that every requirement of the new law before the show-cause notice is deemed satisfied — it is not law, and the officer cannot use it to fill a gap the statute leaves. The Bombay High Court has already declined to accept paragraph 6.1, and has quashed an order and notice where the sanction came from the wrong specified authority notwithstanding what the instruction said about s.151; the Delhi High Court has held that paragraph, and the sorting of years built on it, beyond the Board's power under s.119 and ultra vires s.149(1). Knowing which paragraph is being leaned on, and whether the Supreme Court actually said it, is what separates a defence from a complaint.
Binding on the department, not on the assessee or the courts. An assessee may rely on a circular that is beneficial to them.
Read aloud by your device. Press again to stop.
On 4 May 2022 the Supreme Court decided Union of India v Ashish Agarwal. Notices under s.148 had gone out between 1 April 2021 and 30 June 2021 under ss.147 to 151 as they stood before the Finance Act, 2021, relying on the time extended by the Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation and Amendment of Certain Provisions) Act, 2020 and the notifications under it, and High Courts had quashed them. Exercising its power under Article 142, the Court directed that those notices “shall be deemed to have been issued under section 148A of the IT Act as substituted by the Finance Act, 2021 and construed or treated to be show-cause notices in terms of section 148A(b)”, that the assessing officer “shall, within thirty days from today provide to the respective assessees information and material relied upon by the Revenue”, with “two weeks thereafter” for the assessees to reply, that the requirement of an enquiry with the prior approval of the specified authority under s.148A(a) be dispensed with as a one-time measure, that orders under s.148A(d) should follow, and that all defences available to the assessees, including those under s.149, and all rights and contentions available to the assessees and the Revenue under the Finance Act, 2021 and in law, should continue to be available. The Board issued this instruction on 11 May 2022 so that the judgment would be implemented uniformly, describing the notices throughout as “extended reassessment notices”.
The instruction directs the following. On scope, paragraph 5.1 clarifies that the judgment “applies to all cases where extended reassessment notices have been issued … irrespective of the fact whether such notices have been challenged or not”. On limitation, paragraph 6.1 sets out s.149(1) as amended by the Finance Act, 2021 and states that the “Decision of Hon'ble Supreme Court read with the time extension provided by TOLA will allow extended reassessment notices to travel back in time to their original date when such notices were to be issued and then new section 149 of the Act is to be applied at that point”. Paragraph 6.2 then sorts the years: for assessment years 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 a fresh notice under s.148 can be issued “only if the case falls under clause (b)” of s.149(1), with the approval of the authority in clause (ii) of s.151; for 2016-17 and 2017-18 it can be issued under clause (a), with the approval of the authority in clause (i) of s.151. Paragraph 7.1 carves out a class: information and material “may not be provided” for 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 where the escaped income “amounts to or is likely to amount to less than fifty lakh rupees”, and a separate instruction was promised for disposing of those cases. Paragraph 8.1 sets the procedure — the extended notices are deemed show-cause notices under s.148A(b) and “all requirement of new law prior to that show cause notice shall be deemed to have been complied with”; the material was to be supplied within thirty days, that is by 2 June 2022; the assessee had two weeks from the last communication of material to reply, extendable on an application considered on merit; and the order under s.148A(d) was to be passed with the prior approval of the specified authority, within one month from the end of the month in which the reply was received or the time to reply expired, and served with the s.148 notice.
The instrument is an administrative direction issued in exercise of the Board's power under s.119, made because “the implementation of the judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court is required to be done in a uniform manner”. Its legal work is done in paragraph 6.1, and that paragraph is where it stops being a transcription of the judgment and becomes a construction of it. The Supreme Court had held that the new law operates and that all defences under s.149 remain available; the Board added that the extended notices travel back to their original dates and that new s.149 is then applied at that point, with the extension given by TOLA carried across. Nothing in the judgment says that. Two other departures are worth naming. The Court's direction that the officer provide the information and material relied upon was made without exception and within thirty days; paragraph 7.1 removes a class of cases from it. And the Court dispensed with the enquiry and its prior approval under s.148A(a) as a one-time measure; paragraph 8.1 states more broadly that every requirement of the new law before the show-cause notice is deemed complied with.
Decision of Hon'ble Supreme Court read with the time extension provided by TOLA will allow extended reassessment notices to travel back in time to their original date when such notices were to be issued and then new section 149 of the Act is to be applied at that point.
Upload it and we will read it, work out your deadline and draft the reply. A CA reviews before anything is filed.
Handle my notice → Ask a CA on WhatsAppThis is the instruction, issued under s.119 a week after Union of India v Ashish Agarwal, that told every Assessing Officer how to work out that judgment on the roughly ninety thousand notices issued under the old reassessment law between 1 April 2021 and 30 June 2021. It directs that the judgment applies to all those notices whether or not they were challenged; that the notices travel back to their original dates and new s.149 is then applied at that point, so a fresh s.148 notice may issue for assessment years 2013-14 to 2015-16 only under s.149(1)(b) and for 2016-17 and 2017-18 under s.149(1)(a); that information and material need not be given at all where escaped income for 2013-14 to 2015-16 is less than fifty lakh rupees; and that in the remaining cases the material was to be supplied by 2 June 2022, the assessee had two weeks to reply, and an order under s.148A(d) was to follow with the approval of the specified authority under s.151. Three of those directions go further than the judgment does, and the courts have said so. This was decided by the CBDT Circulars & Instructions (Central Board of Direct Taxes, ITJ Section, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, acting under s.119. The instruction is signed as printed by Tanay Sharma, DCIT(OSD), ITJ-I, and is copied to the Principal Chief Commissioners of Income Tax and the Directors General of Income Tax with a request to bring it to the attention of all officers.) and bears on section 148, section 148A, section 148A(b), section 148A(d), section 149, section 149(1)(a), section 149(1)(b), section 151, section 147, section 119, section TOLA 2020 s.3, section Constitution Art. 142, section 147A of the Income Tax Act 1961. It is reported as Instruction No. 01/2022 [F. No. 279/Misc./M-51/2022-ITJ], dated 11 May 2022. Every reassessment that was restarted in the summer of 2022 for an old year began with this document rather than with a fresh application of mind, so a practitioner defending one needs to know exactly what it says and exactly where it exceeds the judgment it claims to implement. It is binding on the officer and not on you, which makes it useful in two opposite directions. Where it helps — paragraph 7.1, which directs that information and material need not be supplied for assessment years 2013-14 to 2015-16 below fifty lakh rupees — you may hold the department to it, because an assessee may rely on an instruction that is beneficial. Where it hurts — paragraph 6.1's travelling back in time, and paragraph 8.1's sweeping statement that every requirement of the new law before the show-cause notice is deemed satisfied — it is not law, and the officer cannot use it to fill a gap the statute leaves. The Bombay High Court has already declined to accept paragraph 6.1, and has quashed an order and notice where the sanction came from the wrong specified authority notwithstanding what the instruction said about s.151; the Delhi High Court has held that paragraph, and the sorting of years built on it, beyond the Board's power under s.119 and ultra vires s.149(1). Knowing which paragraph is being leaned on, and whether the Supreme Court actually said it, is what separates a defence from a complaint. If it applies to you, the first step is this: Get the instruction by its number and date and read it against the Supreme Court's directions, not instead of them. Where the two differ the judgment governs, because the instruction is an administrative direction under s.119 and binds the department only.
On 4 May 2022 the Supreme Court decided Union of India v Ashish Agarwal. Notices under s.148 had gone out between 1 April 2021 and 30 June 2021 under ss.147 to 151 as they stood before the Finance Act, 2021, relying on the time extended by the Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation and Amendment of Certain Provisions) Act, 2020 and the notifications under it, and High Courts had quashed them. Exercising its power under Article 142, the Court directed that those notices “shall be deemed to have been issued under section 148A of the IT Act as substituted by the Finance Act, 2021 and construed or treated to be show-cause notices in terms of section 148A(b)”, that the assessing officer “shall, within thirty days from today provide to the respective assessees information and material relied upon by the Revenue”, with “two weeks thereafter” for the assessees to reply, that the requirement of an enquiry with the prior approval of the specified authority under s.148A(a) be dispensed with as a one-time measure, that orders under s.148A(d) should follow, and that all defences available to the assessees, including those under s.149, and all rights and contentions available to the assessees and the Revenue under the Finance Act, 2021 and in law, should continue to be available. The Board issued this instruction on 11 May 2022 so that the judgment would be implemented uniformly, describing the notices throughout as “extended reassessment notices”. The matter was decided on 2022-05-11 by the CBDT Circulars & Instructions (Central Board of Direct Taxes, ITJ Section, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, acting under s.119. The instruction is signed as printed by Tanay Sharma, DCIT(OSD), ITJ-I, and is copied to the Principal Chief Commissioners of Income Tax and the Directors General of Income Tax with a request to bring it to the attention of all officers.). On those facts the CBDT Circulars & Instructions held as follows. The instruction directs the following. On scope, paragraph 5.1 clarifies that the judgment “applies to all cases where extended reassessment notices have been issued … irrespective of the fact whether such notices have been challenged or not”. On limitation, paragraph 6.1 sets out s.149(1) as amended by the Finance Act, 2021 and states that the “Decision of Hon'ble Supreme Court read with the time extension provided by TOLA will allow extended reassessment notices to travel back in time to their original date when such notices were to be issued and then new section 149 of the Act is to be applied at that point”. Paragraph 6.2 then sorts the years: for assessment years 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 a fresh notice under s.148 can be issued “only if the case falls under clause (b)” of s.149(1), with the approval of the authority in clause (ii) of s.151; for 2016-17 and 2017-18 it can be issued under clause (a), with the approval of the authority in clause (i) of s.151. Paragraph 7.1 carves out a class: information and material “may not be provided” for 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 where the escaped income “amounts to or is likely to amount to less than fifty lakh rupees”, and a separate instruction was promised for disposing of those cases. Paragraph 8.1 sets the procedure — the extended notices are deemed show-cause notices under s.148A(b) and “all requirement of new law prior to that show cause notice shall be deemed to have been complied with”; the material was to be supplied within thirty days, that is by 2 June 2022; the assessee had two weeks from the last communication of material to reply, extendable on an application considered on merit; and the order under s.148A(d) was to be passed with the prior approval of the specified authority, within one month from the end of the month in which the reply was received or the time to reply expired, and served with the s.148 notice.
The instrument is an administrative direction issued in exercise of the Board's power under s.119, made because “the implementation of the judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court is required to be done in a uniform manner”. Its legal work is done in paragraph 6.1, and that paragraph is where it stops being a transcription of the judgment and becomes a construction of it. The Supreme Court had held that the new law operates and that all defences under s.149 remain available; the Board added that the extended notices travel back to their original dates and that new s.149 is then applied at that point, with the extension given by TOLA carried across. Nothing in the judgment says that. Two other departures are worth naming. The Court's direction that the officer provide the information and material relied upon was made without exception and within thirty days; paragraph 7.1 removes a class of cases from it. And the Court dispensed with the enquiry and its prior approval under s.148A(a) as a one-time measure; paragraph 8.1 states more broadly that every requirement of the new law before the show-cause notice is deemed complied with. In the words reproduced by the source cited on this page: "Decision of Hon'ble Supreme Court read with the time extension provided by TOLA will allow extended reassessment notices to travel back in time to their original date when such notices were to be issued and then new section 149 of the Act is to be applied at that point."
It was decided by the CBDT Circulars & Instructions on 2022-05-11 and is reported as Instruction No. 01/2022 [F. No. 279/Misc./M-51/2022-ITJ], dated 11 May 2022. Binding on the department, not on the assessee or the courts. An assessee may rely on a circular that is beneficial to them. A CBDT circular or instruction binds officers of the department but not the assessee and not the courts. Where a circular helps you, you may hold the department to it. Where it hurts you, it cannot override the Act or a judgment. On section 148, section 148A, section 148A(b), section 148A(d), section 149, section 149(1)(a), section 149(1)(b), section 151, section 147, section 119, section TOLA 2020 s.3, section Constitution Art. 142, section 147A, the practical question is whether the facts of your own notice match the facts of this case closely enough for the same rule to apply.
It helps the department, and it appears in this library for that reason — you need to know what the Assessing Officer will cite against you. The instruction directs the following. On scope, paragraph 5.1 clarifies that the judgment “applies to all cases where extended reassessment notices have been issued … irrespective of the fact whether such notices have been challenged or not”. On limitation, paragraph 6.1 sets out s.149(1) as amended by the Finance Act, 2021 and states that the “Decision of Hon'ble Supreme Court read with the time extension provided by TOLA will allow extended reassessment notices to travel back in time to their original date when such notices were to be issued and then new section 149 of the Act is to be applied at that point”. Paragraph 6.2 then sorts the years: for assessment years 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 a fresh notice under s.148 can be issued “only if the case falls under clause (b)” of s.149(1), with the approval of the authority in clause (ii) of s.151; for 2016-17 and 2017-18 it can be issued under clause (a), with the approval of the authority in clause (i) of s.151. Paragraph 7.1 carves out a class: information and material “may not be provided” for 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 where the escaped income “amounts to or is likely to amount to less than fifty lakh rupees”, and a separate instruction was promised for disposing of those cases. Paragraph 8.1 sets the procedure — the extended notices are deemed show-cause notices under s.148A(b) and “all requirement of new law prior to that show cause notice shall be deemed to have been complied with”; the material was to be supplied within thirty days, that is by 2 June 2022; the assessee had two weeks from the last communication of material to reply, extendable on an application considered on merit; and the order under s.148A(d) was to be passed with the prior approval of the specified authority, within one month from the end of the month in which the reply was received or the time to reply expired, and served with the s.148 notice. It arises in Reassessment & Reopening and Assessment & Scrutiny matters, on section 148, section 148A, section 148A(b), section 148A(d), section 149, section 149(1)(a), section 149(1)(b), section 151, section 147, section 119, section TOLA 2020 s.3, section Constitution Art. 142, section 147A of the Income Tax Act 1961, and was decided by Central Board of Direct Taxes, ITJ Section, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, acting under s.119. The instruction is signed as printed by Tanay Sharma, DCIT(OSD), ITJ-I, and is copied to the Principal Chief Commissioners of Income Tax and the Directors General of Income Tax with a request to bring it to the attention of all officers.. Before relying on it, read the source linked on this page and check whether it has since been distinguished, overruled or overtaken by an amendment to the Income Tax Act. In practice the steps that follow from it are these. Check which notice you are actually dealing with. The instruction is about notices issued under the old law between 1 April 2021 and 30 June 2021; it has nothing to say about a notice issued outside that window, and the Bombay High Court has refused to apply it to one. If the officer relies on the “travel back in time” sentence in paragraph 6.1, ask him to state in writing the original date he is travelling back to and to work the limitation from it. The construction is the Board's, not the Court's: Bombay has declined to accept it and Delhi has held it beyond the Board's power. Check who approved the order under s.148A(d) and the notice under s.148. Where more than three years had elapsed from the end of the relevant assessment year when the sanction was sought, the specified authority is the one in s.151(ii); an approval from the wrong authority is a jurisdictional failure. Where your year is 2013-14, 2014-15 or 2015-16 and the escaped income is below fifty lakh rupees, ask what became of the case: the instruction directs that information and material may not be provided, and promises a separate instruction on the procedure for disposing of those cases. Read this alongside the library's pages on Union of India v Ashish Agarwal and on Union of India v Rajeev Bansal before arguing surviving time; the arithmetic comes from those decisions and not from the instruction.
Partly overruled — read this first. Nothing withdrawing it was found; it remains the document the department worked from in 2022. What has moved is the reception. The Bombay High Court dealt with it in Siemens Financial Services Pvt Ltd v Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax, Writ Petition No. 4888 of 2022, decided 25 August 2023 by K.R. Shriram and Dr N.K. Gokhale JJ. At paragraph 28 the Court held that “the interpretation placed by the CBDT in paragraph 6.1 of Instruction No. 1/2022 dated 11th May 2022 cannot be countenanced as it is not open to them to clarify that the law laid down by the Apex Court means that the extended reassessment notices will travel back in time”, and at paragraph 29 that the Board “has wrongly stated” in paragraph 6.2(ii) that s.148 notices for assessment year 2016-17 are to be treated as issued within three years of the end of that year. It held the instruction had no application to the notice before it, dated 31 July 2022, and quashed the s.148A(d) order and the s.148 notice because the approval had come from the s.151(i) authority when s.151(ii) applied. The Delhi High Court went further. In Ganesh Dass Khanna v Income Tax Officer, lead Writ Petition (C) No. 11527 of 2022, decided 10 November 2023 by Rajiv Shakdher and Girish Kathpalia JJ, the Court recorded that in some of the petitions “the challenge is also laid to Instruction dated 11.05.2022”, and held that “the aforesaid provisions contained in the Instruction dated 11.05.2022 are beyond the powers conferred on the CBDT under Section 119 of the 1961 Act” and that “The paragraphs mentioned above are clearly ultra vires the provisions of Section 149(1) of the amended 1961 Act.” It added that the instruction gives no clarity about the “original date when such notices were to be issued”, so the impugned provisions “are also unsustainable in law because they are vague.” Paragraph 6.1 and the sorting of years built on it have not merely been declined; they have been held to be outside the Board's power. The Supreme Court recorded the instruction and its “travel back in time” sentence at paragraph 14 of Union of India v Rajeev Bansal, decided 3 October 2024. What it settled about TOLA and surviving time is on its own page here, with Ashish Agarwal; work the computation from there, not from this instruction. Separately, s.147A and s.292BC were inserted by the Finance Act, 2026 with effect deemed from 1 April 2021, and s.147A is itself before the Supreme Court; that fight is on the s.147A page. No source could be cited for that finding. Checking whether an authority still stands matters as much as knowing what it held: a decision may be overruled on one point and survive on another, or the provision it interprets may have been amended since. Read the source and the editor's note on this page before relying on it in a reply to an Assessing Officer or in an appeal.
This is shaped as the library shapes a circular or an instruction rather than a judgment, because that is what it is: an instrument issued under s.119 that officers acted on, with the issuing office recorded where a court's Bench would go. It earns a record of its own because thousands of reassessments were conducted on its terms and because three of its directions do not come from the judgment it implements. The text was read as reproduced in full in a High Court judgment, which carries its file number, its subject line and its numbered paragraphs. Its substance has been checked from four further directions that do not depend on that reproduction: the Supreme Court's own judgment in Rajeev Bansal, which sets out paragraph 5.1 and paragraph 6.1 in the Court's words; the Bombay High Court's judgment in Siemens Financial Services, which quotes paragraphs 6.1 and 6.2(ii); the Delhi High Court's judgment in Ganesh Dass Khanna, which tests it against s.119 and s.149(1); and a professional firm's contemporaneous note of May 2022, which records the treatment of the two groups of assessment years, the fifty lakh rupees carve-out, the thirty days ending 2 June 2022 and the two weeks for the reply. The signatory is given as printed on the reproduction. The three departures named in the reasoning were each established by putting the instruction beside the operative directions in Ashish Agarwal, read on the Supreme Court's own record of that judgment. The judgment directs the officer to provide the information and material relied upon in the deemed show-cause cases within thirty days, with no exception; the instruction excepts a class. The judgment dispenses with the enquiry and its prior approval under s.148A(a) as a one-time measure; the instruction says every requirement of the new law before the show-cause notice is deemed complied with. And the sentence about travelling back in time appears nowhere in the judgment. The two weeks, by contrast, is the Court's own and is not a departure. Section labels are the provisions the instruction itself works with, together with s.147A, which is carried because the validity note points the reader to it. Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation and Amendment of Certain Provisions) Act, 2020 s.3 is carried because the instruction relies on the extension given by it. Nothing has been carried for the 2025 Act: the reassessment provisions were renumbered there, but this instrument speaks to a closed set of notices issued in 2021 under the 1961 Act, and a successor mapping would say nothing useful about it. The instruction does not say how the cases it removes from the process in paragraph 7.1 are to be closed — it says only that a separate instruction will issue on the procedure for disposing of them. It does not identify the “original date” that a notice is to travel back to, which is the figure the whole of paragraph 6.1 depends on. It does not deal with assessment years earlier than 2013-14. It says nothing about what happens where the reply of the assessee, or the material supplied, shows the year is outside s.149 altogether. And being an instrument under s.119 it binds the department only, so it cannot cure a defect in the notice, in the sanction or in the order under s.148A(d). This library shows the verification state of every entry openly. This entry has not yet been read in full by a chartered accountant. The summary reflects the sources listed on this page. Read the source before you rely on it in a reply to an Assessing Officer or in an appeal before the Commissioner (Appeals) or the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal.
The instruction directs the following. On scope, paragraph 5.1 clarifies that the judgment “applies to all cases where extended reassessment notices have been issued … irrespective of the fact whether such notices have been challenged or not”. On limitation, paragraph 6.1 sets out s.149(1) as amended by the Finance Act, 2021 and states that the “Decision of Hon'ble Supreme Court read with the time extension provided by TOLA will allow extended reassessment notices to travel back in time to their original date when such notices were to be issued and then new section 149 of the Act is to be applied at that point”. Paragraph 6.2 then sorts the years: for assessment years 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 a fresh notice under s.148 can be issued “only if the case falls under clause (b)” of s.149(1), with the approval of the authority in clause (ii) of s.151; for 2016-17 and 2017-18 it can be issued under clause (a), with the approval of the authority in clause (i) of s.151. Paragraph 7.1 carves out a class: information and material “may not be provided” for 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 where the escaped income “amounts to or is likely to amount to less than fifty lakh rupees”, and a separate instruction was promised for disposing of those cases. Paragraph 8.1 sets the procedure — the extended notices are deemed show-cause notices under s.148A(b) and “all requirement of new law prior to that show cause notice shall be deemed to have been complied with”; the material was to be supplied within thirty days, that is by 2 June 2022; the assessee had two weeks from the last communication of material to reply, extendable on an application considered on merit; and the order under s.148A(d) was to be passed with the prior approval of the specified authority, within one month from the end of the month in which the reply was received or the time to reply expired, and served with the s.148 notice.
TaxSphere, “CBDT Instruction No. 1/2022 — the document the whole Ashish Agarwal exercise was run on”, https://taxnotice.vittsphere.com/caselaw/case/cbdt-instruction-1-2022-implementing-ashish-agarwal/ (validity last checked 2026-09-23)
The judgment itself is a government work and may be quoted freely. The summary, the validity note and the reasoning on this page are this library's own writing: quote them with attribution, and please do not present either as the words of the court — this page keeps the two apart and so should a quotation of it.
Every entry in this library links to where it was found, so you can check it yourself rather than take our word for it.
What happened to the thousands of s.148 notices issued under the old rules after the law changed in 2021?
They reopened AY 2016-17 in 2022 for under Rs 50 lakh. Is the notice time-barred?
I got a section 148 notice for 2016-17 where the alleged escaped income is under Rs 50 lakh. Is three years the limit, or can they use ten?
Your notice was issued in the 1 April to 30 June 2021 window. Was it saved by TOLA, or is it dead?
