Section 129 — the law in short
What the courts have decided on section 129, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.
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Dy CIT v Mastech Technologies P Ltd
Supreme CourtHelps department
The AO who issued my 148 notice was transferred and his successor issued another. Is the reassessment time-barred?
No. Section 129 lets the successor continue the proceeding from the stage at which the predecessor left it, so the later notice was a continuation and not an abandonment of the first. Limitation is tested against the first notice, and the Supreme Court reversed the High Court's contrary view.
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B. Mohammad Iqbal v ACIT
High CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
The section 276CC complaint against me was filed by an Assistant Commissioner although my case was with the Income-tax Officer, and no assessment was ever made on the capital gain the complaint alleges. Can that prosecution stand?
No, on this decision. The Madras High Court quashed the complaint. Only the officer on whom jurisdiction has been conferred by directions or orders is the Assessing Officer; here the show cause notice came from the Income-tax Officer of the ward while the complaint was laid by the Assistant Commissioner, with no transfer under section 127 and no intimation under section 129, so the sanction under section 279 had been given without any application of mind to the question of jurisdiction. Separately, no regular assessment had ever been made, so the tax threshold in the proviso to section 276CC could not be tested and the prosecution was premature.
Listed strongest first: Supreme Court, then High Court, then Tribunal, then CBDT. Nothing here has yet been read in full by a chartered accountant — open an entry to see where it came from.