Can I go to the writ court against a s.148A(b) notice that simply asserts my s.80GGC claim is bogus, when the deduction was already examined in the completed assessment?
The Orissa High Court entertained exactly that writ petition and stayed the notice. It required the Revenue to be heard on how a claim for deduction that had been made and assessed, being a donation to a registered unrecognised political party, could be said to have escaped assessment, and the petitioner argued change of opinion on the authority of CIT v Kelvinator of India Ltd. This is an interlocutory order: it decides nothing and contains no holding.
Decided by the High Court (Arindam Sinha J and Sanjay Kumar Mishra J) on 2023-06-21, reported as W.P.(C) No. 15876 of 2023 with I.A. No. 7271 of 2023, High Court of Orissa at Cuttack (interim orders dated 21 June 2023 and 10 August 2023). It bears on section 80GGC, section 148A, section 148A(b), section 148, section 147 of the Income Tax Act 1961, in Reassessment & Reopening, Deductions & Disallowances and Appeals matters.
It is carried because it is the only writ-side material on the s.80GGC reassessment wave that has been traced, and because the question the Court framed at para 4 of the first order is the sharpest formulation of the taxpayer's point: where the deduction was claimed in the return and the return was assessed, the escapement has to be explained, not asserted. The practical value is the route rather than the result — an interim stay of the s.148A notice was granted and continued. Practitioners must not cite this as authority for any proposition; the final outcome of W.P.(C) No. 15876 of 2023 could not be traced.
Binding within that High Court's jurisdiction. Persuasive elsewhere.
Read aloud by your device. Press again to stop.
The petitioner, an assessee at Rourkela, had claimed a deduction of Rs 3,00,000 under s.80GGC for AY 2019-20 for a donation to a political party. A notice dated 30 March 2023 under clause (b) of s.148A was issued to him; paragraph 4 of the annexure to that notice recorded that on perusal of the information received against the records available with the department, and after verification, it was seen from his return for AY 2019-20 that he had claimed a deduction of Rs 3,00,000 on account of donation to a political party under s.80GGC 'which is a bogus claim'. Senior counsel for the petitioner submitted that the donation had already been the subject of assessment in the concerned financial year, so there was no question of its having escaped assessment, and that the notice was a change of opinion on which no reassessment could rest (order of 21 June 2023, para 2). CIT v Kelvinator of India Ltd (2010) 320 ITR 561 (SC), for the proposition that the power to reassess is not a power to review and that there must be tangible material, was cited not at that hearing but at the next, and appears at para 3 of the order of 10 August 2023. Senior Standing Counsel appeared for the Revenue and, at the second hearing, drew attention to paragraph 6 of the counter affidavit; the petitioner had not filed a rejoinder and was permitted to do so.
No holding. By the order of 21 June 2023 the Court directed that the Revenue would be heard on the adjourned date on how the claim for deduction of Rs 3,00,000, being a donation to a registered unrecognised political party, could be said to have escaped assessment, listed the matter to 10 July 2023 and directed that the impugned notice would remain stayed till the next date of hearing (paras 4, 5 and 6). By the order of 10 August 2023 the matter was listed to 18 August 2023 with the interim order to continue (para 6).
The Court gave no reasons; it framed the question it wished the Revenue to answer and granted interim protection. The framing itself is the significant part: the Court put the burden on the Revenue to explain how an amount claimed in the return and dealt with in the assessment had escaped assessment, and did so in the specific context of a donation to a party that is registered though unrecognised.
Revenue will be heard on adjourned date on how the claim for deduction at Rs.3,00,000/-, being donation to a registered unrecognized political party can be said to have escaped assessment.
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 WhatsAppThe Orissa High Court entertained exactly that writ petition and stayed the notice. It required the Revenue to be heard on how a claim for deduction that had been made and assessed, being a donation to a registered unrecognised political party, could be said to have escaped assessment, and the petitioner argued change of opinion on the authority of CIT v Kelvinator of India Ltd. This is an interlocutory order: it decides nothing and contains no holding. This was decided by the High Court (Arindam Sinha J and Sanjay Kumar Mishra J) and bears on section 80GGC, section 148A, section 148A(b), section 148, section 147 of the Income Tax Act 1961. It is reported as W.P.(C) No. 15876 of 2023 with I.A. No. 7271 of 2023, High Court of Orissa at Cuttack (interim orders dated 21 June 2023 and 10 August 2023). It is carried because it is the only writ-side material on the s.80GGC reassessment wave that has been traced, and because the question the Court framed at para 4 of the first order is the sharpest formulation of the taxpayer's point: where the deduction was claimed in the return and the return was assessed, the escapement has to be explained, not asserted. The practical value is the route rather than the result — an interim stay of the s.148A notice was granted and continued. Practitioners must not cite this as authority for any proposition; the final outcome of W.P.(C) No. 15876 of 2023 could not be traced. If it applies to you, the first step is this: Check first whether the s.80GGC deduction was actually examined in the original assessment; the change-of-opinion argument is only available if it was.
The petitioner, an assessee at Rourkela, had claimed a deduction of Rs 3,00,000 under s.80GGC for AY 2019-20 for a donation to a political party. A notice dated 30 March 2023 under clause (b) of s.148A was issued to him; paragraph 4 of the annexure to that notice recorded that on perusal of the information received against the records available with the department, and after verification, it was seen from his return for AY 2019-20 that he had claimed a deduction of Rs 3,00,000 on account of donation to a political party under s.80GGC 'which is a bogus claim'. Senior counsel for the petitioner submitted that the donation had already been the subject of assessment in the concerned financial year, so there was no question of its having escaped assessment, and that the notice was a change of opinion on which no reassessment could rest (order of 21 June 2023, para 2). CIT v Kelvinator of India Ltd (2010) 320 ITR 561 (SC), for the proposition that the power to reassess is not a power to review and that there must be tangible material, was cited not at that hearing but at the next, and appears at para 3 of the order of 10 August 2023. Senior Standing Counsel appeared for the Revenue and, at the second hearing, drew attention to paragraph 6 of the counter affidavit; the petitioner had not filed a rejoinder and was permitted to do so. The matter was decided on 2023-06-21 by the High Court (Arindam Sinha J and Sanjay Kumar Mishra J). On those facts the High Court held as follows. No holding. By the order of 21 June 2023 the Court directed that the Revenue would be heard on the adjourned date on how the claim for deduction of Rs 3,00,000, being a donation to a registered unrecognised political party, could be said to have escaped assessment, listed the matter to 10 July 2023 and directed that the impugned notice would remain stayed till the next date of hearing (paras 4, 5 and 6). By the order of 10 August 2023 the matter was listed to 18 August 2023 with the interim order to continue (para 6).
The Court gave no reasons; it framed the question it wished the Revenue to answer and granted interim protection. The framing itself is the significant part: the Court put the burden on the Revenue to explain how an amount claimed in the return and dealt with in the assessment had escaped assessment, and did so in the specific context of a donation to a party that is registered though unrecognised. In the words reproduced by the source cited on this page: "Revenue will be heard on adjourned date on how the claim for deduction at Rs.3,00,000/-, being donation to a registered unrecognized political party can be said to have escaped assessment."
It was decided by the High Court on 2023-06-21 and is reported as W.P.(C) No. 15876 of 2023 with I.A. No. 7271 of 2023, High Court of Orissa at Cuttack (interim orders dated 21 June 2023 and 10 August 2023). 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 80GGC, section 148A, section 148A(b), section 148, section 147, 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. No holding. By the order of 21 June 2023 the Court directed that the Revenue would be heard on the adjourned date on how the claim for deduction of Rs 3,00,000, being a donation to a registered unrecognised political party, could be said to have escaped assessment, listed the matter to 10 July 2023 and directed that the impugned notice would remain stayed till the next date of hearing (paras 4, 5 and 6). By the order of 10 August 2023 the matter was listed to 18 August 2023 with the interim order to continue (para 6). It arises in Reassessment & Reopening, Deductions & Disallowances and Appeals matters, on section 80GGC, section 148A, section 148A(b), section 148, section 147 of the Income Tax Act 1961, and was decided by Arindam Sinha J and Sanjay Kumar Mishra J. 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. Reproduce the offending sentence from the annexure to the s.148A(b) notice in the writ petition, as was done here, so the Court can see the assertion is bare. Rely on CIT v Kelvinator of India Ltd (2010) 320 ITR 561 (SC) for the proposition that the power to reassess is not a power to review and that there must be tangible material. Ask for interim protection at the admission stage rather than waiting for the s.148A(d) order. Trace the final disposal of W.P.(C) No. 15876 of 2023 before relying on this in argument.
Searched for later treatment; none was found. That is not the same as a source affirming it. Interlocutory only, and the writ petition is still undecided. W.P.(C) No. 15876 of 2023 has generated a series of orders on the Orissa High Court's board - 21 June 2023, 10 August 2023, 2 April 2024, 23 April 2024 and 1 July 2024 - and the last of those, before Dr Justice B.R. Sarangi and Justice G. Satapathy, does no more than direct that the matter be called after two weeks, that objections be filed meanwhile, and that the interim order already passed continue until the next date. Nothing has been decided about s.80GGC, about the validity of the notice under s.148A(b), or about the reassessment. No later order disposing of the petition was traced, and no decision anywhere applies, follows or doubts any of these orders. Nothing in them may be cited as a proposition of law; the only safe statement is that the interim protection was subsisting when the matter was last listed. 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 an interlocutory order and has no holding. Two orders in the same writ petition have been read in full: the order of 21 June 2023, which runs to six numbered paragraphs, and the order of 10 August 2023, also six numbered paragraphs, the second listing the matter to 18 August 2023 with the interim order to continue. The petitioner's name is spelt 'Shailendra' in the first order and 'Sailendra' in the second. No final judgment in W.P.(C) No. 15876 of 2023 has been located. The 'favours' field is set to null because nothing was decided. The first order records at paragraph 1 the submission about Union of India v Ashish Agarwal, AIR 2022 SC 2781, which is counsel's submission and not a holding of this Court. Kelvinator is cited only in the second order, at its paragraph 3; it does not appear in the order of 21 June 2023, which is this entry's source. What that means for use. An interim order granting and continuing a stay decides nothing about the validity of a notice under s.148A(b) or about the officer's jurisdiction under s.147, and it cannot be cited as authority for either. Its value is that it shows the point being taken and a court thinking it worth an interim order: where the deduction under s.80GGC was claimed in the return, the return was processed or assessed, and the notice does no more than assert escapement, the taxpayer's answer is that the material must show what escaped and why. Two practical points follow. The reply to the notice under s.148A(b) is the place to put that answer, because the order that follows it fixes what the officer may do under s.148, and an assessee who saves his case for a writ has given away the statutory stage. And an interim stay of this kind protects only the petitioner before the court: it does not suspend notices issued to anyone else, and it does not stop time running on the assessee's own remedies. This entry is a record of a live controversy and not material to cite. One further caution on the substantive point. The s.80GGC cases turn on whether the donee was in fact a registered political party at the relevant time and whether the payment was genuinely made, and an interim order says nothing about either. An assessee whose donation is challenged should assemble the receipt, the mode of payment and the party's registration status for the year before he argues about the notice at all. 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.
No holding. By the order of 21 June 2023 the Court directed that the Revenue would be heard on the adjourned date on how the claim for deduction of Rs 3,00,000, being a donation to a registered unrecognised political party, could be said to have escaped assessment, listed the matter to 10 July 2023 and directed that the impugned notice would remain stayed till the next date of hearing (paras 4, 5 and 6). By the order of 10 August 2023 the matter was listed to 18 August 2023 with the interim order to continue (para 6).
TaxSphere, “Shailendra Kumar Agarwal v Income Tax Officer, Ward 1, Rourkela”, https://taxnotice.vittsphere.com/caselaw/case/shailendra-kumar-agarwal-orissa-hc-80ggc-148a-interim-stay/ (validity last checked 2026-09-16)
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.
My s.148 reassessment started over a political donation but the Assessing Officer has disallowed my 80D and 80DDB for my parents' medical expenses as well. Are those safe?
The Assessing Officer disallowed my s.80GGC deduction purely because the political party was named in a search on registered unrecognised political parties. He has no evidence that I got anything back. Is that enough to sustain the disallowance?
My s.80GGC donation has been disallowed and the same money added back under s.69A, purely because the Investigation Wing says the party ran a cash-back racket. Nothing in the order names me. Can that stand?
I paid the political party by cheque and I hold the receipt. Is that enough to save my s.80GGC deduction when the department says the party was running an accommodation-entry racket?
