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Case law › Supreme Court › Sky Light Hospitality LLP v ACIT
Supreme CourtHelps departments.292Bs.147s.148s.151s.127s.143(1)

Sky Light Hospitality LLP v ACIT

The reassessment notice was issued in the name of my old private limited company, which had already been converted into an LLP and dissolved. I am told that makes the notice void. Is that always right?

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The reassessment notice was issued in the name of my old private limited company, which had already been converted into an LLP and dissolved. I am told that makes the notice void. Is that always right?

Not always, and this is the decision the Revenue will cite against you. The Delhi High Court dismissed the writ petition, holding that the issue of the notice in the name of the dissolved private limited company was an error and technical lapse which caused no prejudice, that there was no doubt and debate that the notice was meant for the petitioner and no one else, and that human errors and mistakes cannot and should not nullify proceedings which are otherwise valid — that being the effect and mandate of section 292B. The Supreme Court dismissed the special leave petition with the words: 'In the peculiar facts of this case, we are convinced that wrong name given in the notice was merely a clerical error which could be corrected under Section 292B of the Income Tax Act.'

Decided by the Supreme Court (Supreme Court: A.K. Sikri and Ashok Bhushan, JJ. High Court: Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar, JJ. (judgment delivered orally by Sanjiv Khanna, J.)) on 2018-04-06, reported as Supreme Court: Petition for Special Leave to Appeal (C) No. 7409/2018, order dated 6 April 2018, arising out of the final judgment and order dated 2 February 2018 of the High Court of Delhi in W.P.(C) 10870/2017 and CM No. 44503/2017; assessment year 2010-11. The High Court judgment is referred to in Maruti Suzuki as Sky Light Hospitality LLP v. Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax, (2018) 405 ITR 296 (Delhi).. It bears on section 292B, section 147, section 148, section 151, section 127, section 143(1) of the Income Tax Act 1961, in Reassessment & Reopening, Assessment & Scrutiny and How Tax Law Is Read matters.

Still good law. Good law, but confined to its facts by the Supreme Court itself. In Pr. Commissioner of Income Tax v. Maruti Suzuki India Limited (25 July 2019), which is already in this library, the Court extracted this order in full at its paragraph 27, set out the peculiar facts of the Delhi High Court's decision, and held at paragraph 31 that 'A close reading of the order of this Court dated 6 April 2018, however indicates that what weighed in the dismissal of the Special Leave Petition were the peculiar facts of the case', concluding in the same paragraph that there is no conflict between the decisions in Spice Enfotainment on the one hand and Skylight Hospitality LLP on the other. At its paragraph 29 — not at paragraph 31 — the same judgment records that the decision in Skylight Hospitality LLP has been distinguished by the Delhi, Gujarat and Madras High Courts in Rajender Kumar Sehgal, Chandreshbhai Jayantibhai Patel and Alamelu Veerappan. None of those three decisions has been read for this entry, which states only that Maruti Suzuki names them. Beyond Maruti Suzuki no systematic later-treatment search has been made, and that check is outstanding. Read this entry with Spice Entertainment Ltd v. Commissioner (Delhi High Court, 3 August 2011), Pr. Commissioner of Income Tax v. Maruti Suzuki India Limited and Pr. Commissioner of Income Tax v. Mahagun Realtors (P) Ltd., all already in this library: the working distinction is between a defect in the NAME ON A NOTICE, curable under section 292B where the record shows a clerical error and the recipient was in no doubt, and an ASSESSMENT ORDER made in the name of and against a juristic person that has ceased to exist, which the Delhi High Court in this very judgment described at paragraph 18 as void and illegal.

Why it matters

The library must carry both sides of this line, and this is the side that says section 292B CAN cure. What decides which side you are on is not a rule but a fact-finding, and the facts that put this case on the curative side are identifiable and should be checked one by one. There was substantial and affirmative material on record showing that the wrong name was a mistake: the conversion into an LLP was noticed and mentioned in the tax evasion report, in the reasons to believe recorded by the Assessing Officer, in the approval obtained from the Principal Commissioner and in the order under section 127; the PAN of the LLP appeared in some of those documents; and the notice was actually out of conformity with the file noting. On top of that, the recipient's own reply showed it had understood and was aware that the notice was for it. The High Court itself expressly distinguished the Spice Infotainment line on a ground that practitioners should hold on to: that was not a case in which a notice under section 147/148 was declared void, but a case in which an ASSESSMENT ORDER was passed in the name of and against a juristic person which had ceased to exist, and such an order is void and illegal. That distinction — defect in the notice, capable of cure where no prejudice results, as against an assessment order made against a dead juristic person — is the working line. And the Supreme Court's own later treatment of this order, in Pr. Commissioner of Income Tax v. Maruti Suzuki India Limited, is essential: the Court there said that a close reading of the order dated 6 April 2018 indicates that what weighed in the dismissal of the special leave petition were the peculiar facts of the case, and concluded that there is no conflict between Spice Entertainment and Skylight Hospitality LLP. So this decision is not a general licence under section 292B; it is authority for what happens when the record itself shows the mistake was clerical and the recipient was in no doubt.

Binding on every court and authority in India.

Not yet CA-verified. This entry was found through the sources listed under the Sources tab, and the summary reflects what those sources say. Nobody has yet read the full judgment and signed it off. Check the source before relying on it.

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Related

Other authorities on the same sections.
Every authority on the provisions this decision turns on: all 203 on s.148 · all 170 on s.147 · all 110 on s.143(1)