The property was bought years before November 2016 and the benami notice came after. Can the amended Act reach back?
This is the writ batch in which the Rajasthan High Court framed that question directly - whether the Benami Amendment Act 2016 applies retrospectively - after a search under s.132 threw up show-cause notices under s.24(1) and provisional attachments under s.24(3) for pre-amendment land purchases. The judgment runs to 160 pages and the concluding part could not be reached in the copy available; what can be established from the document is the framing of the issue at para 19 and the rival cases on either side.
Decided by the High Court (Veerendr Singh Siradhana J (Single Judge)) on 2019-07-12, reported as S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 2915/2019 with connected writ petitions (High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan, Bench at Jaipur). It bears on section Benami s.2(9), section Benami s.3, section Benami s.24, section Benami s.53, section Benami s.65, section Benami Amendment Act 2016, section 132, section Constitution Art. 20(1) of the Income Tax Act 1961, in How Tax Law Is Read matters.
It is the first substantial High Court treatment of prospectivity and the decision practitioners cite most often on the point. Anyone relying on it needs to know exactly how much of it can be verified and what has happened to the Supreme Court authority that stood over it.
Binding within that High Court's jurisdiction. Persuasive elsewhere.
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The Income-tax Department carried out search and seizure under s.132 of the Income-tax Act 1961 and came upon documents said to indicate benami transactions in land purchases. Show-cause notices were issued under s.24(1) of the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act 1988 as amended by the Benami Amendment Act 2016, and properties were provisionally attached under s.24(3). The petitioners moved the High Court contending that the transactions complained of had taken place before the Amendment Act came into force on 1 November 2016 and that the amended provisions could not be applied to them. The writ petitions were heard together with a large number of connected petitions.
Could not be established from the document available. The Court recorded at para 19 that, considering the entire factual matrix, materials on record and pleadings in totality, it had concluded to deal with the larger question of retrospective applicability, and framed the question as whether the provisions of the Benami Amendment Act 2016 apply retrospectively or not. The copy available breaks off during para 20, where the Court had begun to deal with the preliminary objection on maintainability, so the Court's own answer and the operative order are not recorded here.
What is on the face of the document is the framing of the issue and the rival cases. For the petitioners it was argued that the Amendment Act operates prospectively only; that the language fixing operation on and after the commencement date confines it to transactions after 1 November 2016; that confiscation is penal and cannot be applied to earlier transactions without breaching Article 20(1) of the Constitution; and that the increase in punishment under s.53 from three years to seven years shows the penal character that requires prospective operation (paras 3 to 9). They relied on R. Rajagopal Reddy v. Padmini Chandrasekharan (1995) 2 SCC 630, Mangathai Ammal v. Rajeswari, K.T. Plantation Pvt. Ltd. v. State of Karnataka AIR 2011 SC 3430 and Monnet Ispat & Energy Ltd. v. Union of India (2012) 11 SCC 1. For the Union it was argued that the amended Act is a complete code and the writ petitions premature; that the amendment clarifies and amplifies rather than creates; and that s.65 carries pending matters into the amended procedure (paras 10 to 17), relying among others on Zile Singh v. State of Haryana (2004) 8 SCC 1, Yogendra Kumar Jaiswal v. State of Bihar (2016) 3 SCC 183 and Vodafone International Holdings B.V. v. Union of India. At para 20 the Court began on the preliminary objection as to maintainability, referring to Vodafone and to the principle that questions of fact depending on evidence should be left to the tribunals constituted for them. The document does not go further.
Whether the provisions of Benami Amendment Act, 2016, shall be applicable retrospectively or not?
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Handle my notice → Ask a CA on WhatsAppThis is the writ batch in which the Rajasthan High Court framed that question directly - whether the Benami Amendment Act 2016 applies retrospectively - after a search under s.132 threw up show-cause notices under s.24(1) and provisional attachments under s.24(3) for pre-amendment land purchases. The judgment runs to 160 pages and the concluding part could not be reached in the copy available; what can be established from the document is the framing of the issue at para 19 and the rival cases on either side. This was decided by the High Court (Veerendr Singh Siradhana J (Single Judge)) and bears on section Benami s.2(9), section Benami s.3, section Benami s.24, section Benami s.53, section Benami s.65, section Benami Amendment Act 2016, section 132, section Constitution Art. 20(1) of the Income Tax Act 1961. It is reported as S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 2915/2019 with connected writ petitions (High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan, Bench at Jaipur). It is the first substantial High Court treatment of prospectivity and the decision practitioners cite most often on the point. Anyone relying on it needs to know exactly how much of it can be verified and what has happened to the Supreme Court authority that stood over it. If it applies to you, the first step is this: Fix the date of the transaction and the date of commencement, 1 November 2016, before arguing anything else; the whole point turns on which side of that line the purchase falls.
The Income-tax Department carried out search and seizure under s.132 of the Income-tax Act 1961 and came upon documents said to indicate benami transactions in land purchases. Show-cause notices were issued under s.24(1) of the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act 1988 as amended by the Benami Amendment Act 2016, and properties were provisionally attached under s.24(3). The petitioners moved the High Court contending that the transactions complained of had taken place before the Amendment Act came into force on 1 November 2016 and that the amended provisions could not be applied to them. The writ petitions were heard together with a large number of connected petitions. The matter was decided on 2019-07-12 by the High Court (Veerendr Singh Siradhana J (Single Judge)). On those facts the High Court held as follows. Could not be established from the document available. The Court recorded at para 19 that, considering the entire factual matrix, materials on record and pleadings in totality, it had concluded to deal with the larger question of retrospective applicability, and framed the question as whether the provisions of the Benami Amendment Act 2016 apply retrospectively or not. The copy available breaks off during para 20, where the Court had begun to deal with the preliminary objection on maintainability, so the Court's own answer and the operative order are not recorded here.
What is on the face of the document is the framing of the issue and the rival cases. For the petitioners it was argued that the Amendment Act operates prospectively only; that the language fixing operation on and after the commencement date confines it to transactions after 1 November 2016; that confiscation is penal and cannot be applied to earlier transactions without breaching Article 20(1) of the Constitution; and that the increase in punishment under s.53 from three years to seven years shows the penal character that requires prospective operation (paras 3 to 9). They relied on R. Rajagopal Reddy v. Padmini Chandrasekharan (1995) 2 SCC 630, Mangathai Ammal v. Rajeswari, K.T. Plantation Pvt. Ltd. v. State of Karnataka AIR 2011 SC 3430 and Monnet Ispat & Energy Ltd. v. Union of India (2012) 11 SCC 1. For the Union it was argued that the amended Act is a complete code and the writ petitions premature; that the amendment clarifies and amplifies rather than creates; and that s.65 carries pending matters into the amended procedure (paras 10 to 17), relying among others on Zile Singh v. State of Haryana (2004) 8 SCC 1, Yogendra Kumar Jaiswal v. State of Bihar (2016) 3 SCC 183 and Vodafone International Holdings B.V. v. Union of India. At para 20 the Court began on the preliminary objection as to maintainability, referring to Vodafone and to the principle that questions of fact depending on evidence should be left to the tribunals constituted for them. The document does not go further. In the words reproduced by the source cited on this page: "Whether the provisions of Benami Amendment Act, 2016, shall be applicable retrospectively or not?"
It was decided by the High Court on 2019-07-12 and is reported as S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 2915/2019 with connected writ petitions (High Court of Judicature for Rajasthan, Bench at Jaipur). Binding within that High Court's jurisdiction. Persuasive elsewhere. A High Court decision binds the assessing officer, the Commissioner (Appeals) and the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal within that state, and is persuasive elsewhere. If your assessment is in a different jurisdiction, check whether your own High Court has taken the same view before relying on it. On section Benami s.2(9), section Benami s.3, section Benami s.24, section Benami s.53, section Benami s.65, section Benami Amendment Act 2016, section 132, section Constitution Art. 20(1), 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 cuts both ways and is cited by both sides. Could not be established from the document available. The Court recorded at para 19 that, considering the entire factual matrix, materials on record and pleadings in totality, it had concluded to deal with the larger question of retrospective applicability, and framed the question as whether the provisions of the Benami Amendment Act 2016 apply retrospectively or not. The copy available breaks off during para 20, where the Court had begun to deal with the preliminary objection on maintainability, so the Court's own answer and the operative order are not recorded here. It arises in How Tax Law Is Read matters, on section Benami s.2(9), section Benami s.3, section Benami s.24, section Benami s.53, section Benami s.65, section Benami Amendment Act 2016, section 132, section Constitution Art. 20(1) of the Income Tax Act 1961, and was decided by Veerendr Singh Siradhana J (Single Judge). 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. Put the Article 20(1) argument on record where confiscation or prosecution is threatened for a pre-amendment transaction, since the enhanced punishment under s.53 is the strongest limb of the taxpayer's case. Meet the department's reliance on s.65, which it uses to argue that pending matters are carried into the amended procedure. Do not cite this judgment for a proposition you have not read in the judgment itself; obtain a certified copy before relying on its conclusion. Read the note on validity below before treating the prospectivity position as settled either way.
Under appeal, and the appeal has not been decided. This is a judgment of a single Judge, Siradhana J, in S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 2915/2019 and a very large batch of connected petitions, delivered at the Jaipur Bench on 12 July 2019. It is appealed. The Revenue's appeals are D.B. Special Appeal (Writ) Nos. 1325/2019, 1328/2019 and 1520/2019 and connected matters, Union of India v Niharika Jain, in the same High Court. The Division Bench of Mahanty CJ and Inderjeet Singh J admitted them on 17 December 2019, recording 58 connected matters and listing them at the top of the hearing list; they were still being listed and adjourned for the Revenue's instructions on 8 February 2022 and 5 April 2022, and no order disposing of them has been traced. The appeals are therefore pending and this judgment should be cited as under appeal. On the reported stay: the Telangana High Court in Nexus Feeds Ltd v ACIT, 8 March 2022, records at para 33.1 the Revenue's counsel submitting that a Division Bench of the Rajasthan High Court had stayed this judgment. That is a submission recorded, not a finding, and no stay order could be found - none of the three Division Bench orders read (17 December 2019, 8 February 2022, 5 April 2022) stays the single Judge's judgment, and none mentions one. So the stay remains unconfirmed. On what the single Judge held: the operative order still cannot be read. indiankanoon's copy and the copies of the connected petitions decided the same day break off in the mid-twenties by paragraph number; the 160-page official copy hosted by Bar and Bench cuts off at page 53; the fragment view returns the opening passages whatever phrase is put to it; and Casemine, Legitquest and the itatonline copy are behind a login or return 403. What the holding is taken to be is consistent across every source that describes it: that the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act 2016 came into force on 1 November 2016, is prospective, and cannot be applied to transactions entered into before that date - recorded as the petitioners' reading in Nexus Feeds at para 32.8, and recorded by the Supreme Court in Union of India v Ganpati Dealcom at para 10(ii) as the proposition for which this decision was relied on. That Supreme Court judgment of 23 August 2022 was itself recalled in its entirety on 18 October 2024 in Review Petition (Civil) No. 359 of 2023, 2024 INSC 799, and Civil Appeal No. 5783 of 2022 stands restored and undecided, so there is no Supreme Court ruling standing over this decision either way. 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.
The judgment is 160 pages. Both the print view and the fragment view at indiankanoon truncate it - the main record breaks off during para 20 and the companion record for the connected petition of Sitaram Meena breaks off at page 45 of 160. The same judgment is carried on indiankanoon under the names of several connected petitioners (Sitaram Meena, Jangir Singh, Girja Shanker Asopa, Vinika Bhati, Kishan Singh), all dated 12 July 2019 and all truncated in the same way. The official copy of the judgment could not be reached. Accordingly no holding is stated in this entry and the validity status is unverified. The discovery note recorded 48 connected petitions; the document as read refers to the connected petitions without a figure that could be confirmed, and one companion record puts the number at 26 connected matters. Anyone relying on this decision should obtain a certified copy. 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.
Could not be established from the document available. The Court recorded at para 19 that, considering the entire factual matrix, materials on record and pleadings in totality, it had concluded to deal with the larger question of retrospective applicability, and framed the question as whether the provisions of the Benami Amendment Act 2016 apply retrospectively or not. The copy available breaks off during para 20, where the Court had begun to deal with the preliminary objection on maintainability, so the Court's own answer and the operative order are not recorded here.
TaxSphere, “Niharika Jain v Union of India”, https://taxnotice.vittsphere.com/caselaw/case/niharika-jain-v-uoi-benami-2016-amendment-prospective/ (validity last checked 2026-09-16)
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