It is open, not settled, and it is no longer a construction point. Section 147A, inserted by the Finance Act 2026 with effect from 1 April 2021, defines the Assessing Officer for ss.148 and 148A as an officer other than the National Faceless Assessment Centre and the s.144B(3) units, notwithstanding any judgment of any court or s.151A or any scheme under it. On 10 April 2026 the Supreme Court set aside the High Court judgments that had quashed such notices, remitted them so that the validity and retrospectivity of s.147A could be argued, and stayed further proceedings meanwhile.
The dispute began with the Scheme notified under s.151A on 29 March 2022. One line of High Court authority read it as requiring reassessment notices to issue through the faceless mechanism, so that a notice from the jurisdictional Assessing Officer was without jurisdiction - the Bombay High Court in Hexaware Technologies is the entry in this library on that side. The other read the faceless architecture as operating alongside the jurisdictional officer, on the footing that s.144B is procedural and is not the source of the power to reassess - the Delhi High Court in T.K.S. Builders is the entry on that side. Both entries remain in the library, and both must now be read with what follows.
Section 147A was inserted by the Finance Act 2026 and given effect from 1 April 2021. On the reports I could reach, it provides that for ss.148 and 148A the Assessing Officer means, and shall always be deemed to have meant, an officer other than the National Faceless Assessment Centre and any assessment unit referred to in s.144B(3), and it operates notwithstanding any judgment or order of any court, s.151A, or any scheme framed under s.151A. The memorandum reasoning is that pre-notice satisfaction was always intended to be the jurisdictional officer's function, with the faceless machinery engaged at the assessment stage under s.144B, and that the amendment removes the uncertainty created by the divergent judgments. I have not read the enacted text of s.147A itself; what is set out here comes from commentary and from professional-firm notes.
On 10 April 2026 the Supreme Court, in the batch reported as ITO v. Tej Partap Singh, set aside the High Court judgments that had quashed jurisdictional-officer notices and remitted them. The assessees were given four weeks to amend their petitions to challenge s.147A, the Revenue three weeks to reply, further assessment and reassessment proceedings under the impugned notices were stayed during the pendency of the writ petitions, and the High Courts were asked to decide preferably by 30 September 2026. The Court expressly did not decide the validity, scope, effect, retrospectivity or applicability of s.147A. It has since disposed of connected batches in the same terms, most recently in ACIT v. Rudra Alloys (P.) Ltd. on 19 June 2026.
So the honest statement of the position, as at this entry's writing, is that the taxpayer-favouring line has been legislatively displaced and judicially set aside, the displacement is itself under constitutional challenge, and no court has yet ruled on that challenge. A practitioner who tells a client the point is dead is wrong; a practitioner who tells a client the point is good is also wrong.
The second question - what happens where the assessment has already been completed on the back of such a notice, as against a notice still at show-cause stage - has no clean answer in the material I could reach, and the two reported approaches point in different directions. Where courts on the faceless-only line quashed the notice, they generally treated everything built on it as falling with it: the Bombay High Court is reported in Hitesh Ramniklal Shah v. ACIT to have quashed the notices "along with all reassessment orders granted pursuant thereto and all consequential demand notices and penalty notices", and a Rajasthan High Court decision reported as Bharat Kumar v. DCIT quashed both a notice of 27 March 2024 and the assessment order of 23 March 2025 made on it. Against that, the Rajasthan High Court in Ashok Gupta v. DCIT (D.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 19507 of 2025, 15 January 2026) is reported to have declined to entertain the writ at all because the assessee had already filed an appeal before the CIT(A), and to have sent the jurisdictional ground to be decided in that appeal rather than deciding it itself. Each of those rests on a single source. What they suggest, and it is no more than a suggestion, is that the difference is one of posture rather than principle: a completed assessment brings with it an alternative remedy, and a court that has an appeal in front of it is likely to send the point there.
The practical significance of a completed assessment is different again after the Supreme Court's order. The interim stay it granted is of further assessment and reassessment proceedings; it does not on its face undo an assessment already framed. If yours is already framed, the appeal is where the ground has to be kept alive, and it has to be kept alive as a jurisdictional ground so that it is not treated as waived.
This was for three years the most commonly taken reassessment ground in writ petitions, and a great deal of pending litigation - and a good many appeals where the ground is the only ground - now depends on whether a retrospective amendment can validate proceedings that several High Courts had held to be without jurisdiction. Advice given on this point has a short shelf life, and anything written before April 2026 needs re-checking before it is used.
The only thing behind my reopening notice is the Valuation Officer's report. Is that enough?
My return was only processed under 143(1). Does that stop the department reopening it later?
I made unexplained investments after the close of my accounting year. Which year can the officer tax them in, and can he reopen an earlier year to do it?
My land was notified and an award was made under the Land Acquisition Act, but I thought the award was too low, negotiated a higher figure and executed a sale deed. The Assessing Officer now says that was a voluntary sale and denies s.10(37). Is he right?
How much am I actually required to disclose — and can they reopen because the officer drew the wrong conclusion?
The sanctioning authority just wrote 'yes' and signed. Is that a sanction?
A reassessment was done in between. Does the two-year clock for s.263 restart from it?
I placed all my primary facts before the officer and he dropped the proceedings. Can a later officer reopen the assessment because he takes a different view of those same facts?
Every page in this library links to what it was written from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.