Valid service means the notice actually reached you by one of the modes the Act and rules permit, at an address or email drawn from the prescribed list. Issue and service are distinct events: limitation under section 149 runs to the date the notice is issued, while your time to respond and the department's jurisdiction to proceed depend on service.
Section 282(1) sets out how a notice, summons, requisition, order or other communication may be served: by post or by a courier service approved by the Board; in the manner provided by the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 for service of summons; in the form of an electronic record as provided in Chapter IV of the Information Technology Act, 2000; or by any other means of transmission provided by rules made by the Board. Section 282(2) empowers the Board to prescribe the addresses, including electronic mail addresses, to which communications may be sent.
Rule 127 supplies that list. For physical delivery the permitted addresses are the address in the PAN database, the address in the return of income for the relevant year or the immediately preceding year, the registered office address for a company, or an address the addressee has furnished in writing. If communication cannot be delivered there, the rule allows fallback to addresses held by banks, postal authorities, insurers or government records. For electronic delivery the permitted email addresses are the one in the return, the one available on a company's website, or one furnished by the addressee. Sub-rule (3) leaves the security, transmission and archival procedures to the Principal Director General of Income-tax (Systems).
The distinction that matters most is between issue and service. Limitation provisions are framed around issue — section 149 says no notice "shall be issued" after the stated period. The Supreme Court in R.K. Upadhyaya v. Shanabhai P. Patel drew a clear distinction between issue of notice and service of notice under the 1961 Act. So a notice signed and despatched within time is not fatally late merely because it reached you afterwards; but a notice that was never validly served leaves the officer unable to proceed against you.
What counts as the date of issue in the electronic era was worked out by the Delhi High Court in Suman Jeet Agarwal v. ITO. The court sorted notices into categories and held that "issued" means the date of actual despatch or transmission, not the date the notice was generated or digitally signed. A notice digitally signed after 31 March 2021 bears that later date. A notice merely uploaded on the e-filing portal without transmission is issued when the assessee views it on the portal. A notice sent by speed post is issued when it is handed to the post office. The court expected the officer to produce the despatch record from the departmental system.
Section 292BB then creates a deeming fiction the other way. Where an assessee has appeared in a proceeding or co-operated in an inquiry relating to an assessment or reassessment, the notice is deemed duly served in time and in the proper manner, and the assessee is precluded from objecting that it was not served, not served in time, or served improperly. The proviso is the whole point: the section does not apply where the assessee raised the objection before the completion of the assessment or reassessment.
Service also fixes the recovery clock. Section 220(1) requires the amount in a notice of demand to be paid within thirty days of the service of the notice — not of its date. If you were served late, your thirty days start late, and interest under section 220(2) follows from the end of that period.
In practice the modern dispute is rarely about post. It is about a notice sitting on the portal against an email address that is stale, or a notice sent to an email that is not one of the addresses Rule 127 permits, with no SMS or email alert. That is a service objection, and it has to be taken before the assessment is completed or section 292BB will close it.
If you take the service point after the assessment order is passed, section 292BB will usually defeat it because you appeared and co-operated. Taking it early, in writing, preserves both the objection and the appeal ground. Correctly identifying the date of service also fixes your thirty days under section 220(1) and can defeat an interest or default computation that runs from the wrong date.
No s.143(2) notice was issued at all. Does s.292BB save the assessment?
How strong does the officer's material have to be before he can reopen?
The Commissioner (Appeals) allowed my appeal for one year and said in passing that the amount really belongs to an earlier year. The officer has now reopened that earlier year and calls the remark a finding. Is it one?
My assessment was reduced in appeal after the officer had already sent a recovery certificate to the Collector and my property was attached. Can he carry on with the old certificate?
The officer says a court's order in my land acquisition case lets him reopen years going back to the sixties, because s.150(1) says the notice may be issued at any time. Can he?
The Income-tax Officer allowed me too much depreciation because he worked it out from his own records and forgot the initial depreciation. Years later he wants to reopen. Is that my failure to disclose?
I produced my books and a confirmation for the loan at the original assessment. The officer now says he has learnt the lender was a name lender. Can he reopen on that?
My reassessment notice was posted on the last day of the limitation period but reached me three days later. Is it time barred?
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