Section 148

What a section 148 notice is

Reassessment Notice. Formal reopening. You must file a return for the year in question. It is a critical-severity notice in the reassessment family under the Income Tax Act 1961.

If you ignore it: Best judgment assessment u/s 144 on the reopened year.

Time to reply: this notice type carries no standard period. The date is printed on the notice itself and you must read it off the document. Also check the limitation defence — see LIMITATION.reassessment below.

Under the Income Tax Act 2025: section 280. But read that as reference, not as the provision to cite. Under s.536(2) of the 2025 Act, a proceeding for any tax year beginning before 1 April 2026 stays under the Income Tax Act 1961 from the notice through to the appeal — so a notice arriving today for an earlier year is a 1961 Act matter, whatever today's date is.

Section 148 — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section 148, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• Sanand Properties P Ltd v Jt CIT Supreme CourtHelps department
  My company is a member of an AOP and takes 35% of the AOP's gross sale proceeds under the AOP deed. We showed it as an exempt share of the AOP's profit. After a survey the AO reopened two years and now says it is revenue. Can he reopen, and is the money taxable in my hands?
  No on the reopening challenge and no on the exemption. Where the assessment order shows the Assessing Officer never applied his mind to the character of the receipt at all, there is no opinion to change, and material coming out of a s.133A survey that reveals the true nature of the receipt is tangible material for s.147. On the merits the Court read Clause 7 of the AOP deed itself and held that a member's entitlement to 35% of gross sale proceeds, taken upfront and untouched by the AOP's expenses, is not a share of profit but a diversion of the AOP's receipts by overriding title, taxable in the member's hands as a business receipt. Two Revenue appeals were allowed and the assessee's appeal dismissed.
• ITO v Tej Partap Singh Supreme CourtCuts both ways
  The High Court quashed my s.148 notice because the ward officer issued it instead of the faceless unit. Does that judgment still stand?
  No, not as it stands. On 10 April 2026 the Supreme Court set aside the High Court judgments that had quashed notices issued by the jurisdictional Assessing Officer, because s.147A, inserted by the Finance Act 2026 with effect from 1 April 2021, now defines the Assessing Officer for ss.148 and 148A as an officer other than the National Faceless Assessment Centre and the assessment units in s.144B(3). The Court remitted the matters, left the validity, scope, effect, retrospectivity and applicability of s.147A open for the High Courts, and stayed further assessment and reassessment proceedings in the meantime.
• Union of India v Rajeev Bansal Supreme CourtCuts both ways
  Your notice was issued in the 1 April to 30 June 2021 window. Was it saved by TOLA, or is it dead?
  Saved, but only within limits. TOLA extends the time limit for issuing the reassessment notice and for the sanction under s.151. It does not extend anything else, and every other defence survives — including the surviving-period computation for your own assessment year.
• Mangalam Publications v CIT Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  You filed without books because they were seized. Is that a failure to disclose?
  Not where the primary facts were disclosed some other way. The duty to disclose does not extend beyond primary facts; once they are disclosed, the burden shifts to the officer to draw the right inferences. The reassessments were quashed.
• Dy. CIT v U.K. Paints (Overseas) Ltd Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  A section 153C assessment was made on me after a search on someone else, but nothing incriminating about me was found. Does the Abhisar Buildwell rule protect me too?
  Yes. The Supreme Court dismissed a batch of Revenue appeals, holding that where no incriminating material was found during the search — either from the assessee or from the third party — the assessments under section 153C were rightly set aside by the High Court. The Court declined to interfere with those judgments. It did, however, record on the Revenue's request, made on the strength of Abhisar Buildwell, that it remains open to the Revenue to initiate reassessment proceedings under sections 147 and 148 in accordance with law, if that is permissible under the law.
• PCIT v Abhisar Buildwell P Ltd Supreme CourtCuts both ways
  Search assessment for a year already completed, but nothing incriminating was found. Can the officer still add?
  No — not under s.153A. For completed or unabated assessments the addition must rest on incriminating material found in the search. But the Court preserved the department's power to reopen those years under ss.147 and 148 instead.
• Mansarovar Commercial P Ltd v CIT Supreme CourtHelps department
  My company is registered outside the taxable territory but run from Delhi. Where is it resident?
  Where it is actually run. The Supreme Court held that the residence of a company turns on de facto control and management, not on the place of registration: five companies incorporated under the Registration of Companies (Sikkim) Act, 1961 were resident in India because the management and control of all five was wholly situated in Delhi, at the office of a chartered accountant. The appeals were dismissed and the Delhi High Court's decision affirmed.
• Red Chilli International Sales v ITO Supreme CourtCuts both ways
  The High Court threw out my writ petition against a section 148 notice saying I had an alternative remedy. Was it right to refuse to hear me at all?
  Not on that reasoning. The Supreme Court set aside the Punjab and Haryana High Court's observation that a writ petition against a reassessment notice is not maintainable because of the alternative remedy. It said the observation did not take into account several judgments of the Supreme Court on the High Court's jurisdiction, writ petitions having been entertained to examine whether the jurisdictional pre-conditions for a section 148 notice are satisfied, and that the reopening provisions as amended by the Finance Act 2021 need deeper consideration in the light of the earlier case law. The special leave petition was disposed of without any finding on the merits.
• 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.
• Anshul Jain v PCIT Supreme CourtHelps department
  The order under section 148A(d) rejects everything I said and the section 148 notice has followed. Can I take it straight to the High Court?
  Usually not. The Supreme Court dismissed the assessee's petition against a High Court order refusing to interfere at that stage, saying that the notices had been issued after his objections were considered and that any grievance on the merits had to be taken to the Assessing Officer in the reassessment proceedings. It is an order dismissing a special leave petition with brief reasons, on a record that lists no counsel for the Revenue, and the same Court took a different line four months later in Red Chilli International Sales, where it set aside a refusal to entertain a writ that rested only on the existence of an alternative remedy. Read it as the ordinary rule and not as a bar, and read it today alongside section 147A, because what happens inside a reassessment is the most disturbed part of the Act.
• Union of India v Ashish Agarwal Supreme CourtHelps department
  What happened to the thousands of s.148 notices issued under the old rules after the law changed in 2021?
  Reported as treating those notices as s.148A(b) show-cause notices instead of quashing them, with directions on how they were to proceed.
• Dy. CIT v M.R. Shah Logistics Pvt Ltd Supreme CourtHelps department
  Another company declared the cash it put into my share capital under the Income Declaration Scheme. Does that stop the Department reopening my assessment on the same share money?
  No. The Supreme Court set aside the Gujarat High Court's order quashing a section 148 notice and allowed the assessing officer to complete the reassessment. The immunity in section 192 of the Finance Act 2016 runs to the declarant alone and only for limited purposes; a declaration by Garg Logistics could not immunise the assessee, a non-declarant. The reopening was in any case based on material seized in the search on an accommodation entry provider and correlated with the assessee's Registrar of Companies filings, not on the declaration. Where there is objective tangible material, the sufficiency of that material cannot dictate the validity of the notice.
• Union of India v U.A.E. Exchange Centre Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  My UAE client's Indian liaison office only downloads remittance instructions from the head office server and prints cheques on Indian banks. The Assessing Officer says that is a permanent establishment and wants to tax the whole remittance commission. Is he right?
  No, on these facts. The Supreme Court held that a liaison office whose only activity is downloading information from the head office server and printing and despatching cheques is carrying on an activity of a preparatory or auxiliary character, which Article 5(3)(e) of the India-United Arab Emirates DTAA expressly takes out of the expression 'permanent establishment'. Once the office is deemed by that legal fiction not to be a PE, Article 7 gives India no right to tax the enterprise's profits, and the deeming provisions in ss.5 and 9 of the Act 'can have no bearing whatsoever'.
• New Delhi Television Ltd v DCIT Supreme CourtCuts both ways
  Reopening beyond four years — how much are you actually required to have disclosed?
  The primary facts, and no more. Disclosure of secondary facts is not required. But if the department wants to use an extended limitation window, it must say so in the notice or the reasons.
• PCIT v NRA Iron & Steel P Ltd Supreme CourtHelps department
  How far do I have to go to prove share capital or a loan is genuine?
  Further than many assumed. Reported as tightening what a company must establish about share capital and premium — identity alone is not enough; creditworthiness and genuineness have to be shown too.
• ITO v TechSpan India (P) Ltd Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  What actually counts as a 'change of opinion'?
  Formulating an opinion and then changing it. To constitute a change of opinion the earlier assessment must, expressly or by necessary implication, have expressed a view on the subject now being reopened.
• Sky Light Hospitality LLP v ACIT Supreme CourtHelps department
  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.'
• Raj Dadarkar & Associates v ACIT Supreme CourtHelps department
  Our deed says sub-letting is our business. Does that make the licence fees business income?
  No. The Supreme Court held the objects clause in a partnership deed is not the conclusive factor in deciding the head of income; with no material showing organised commercial exploitation, the compensation and licence fees from the sub-licensed shops and stalls were assessable as income from house property.
• Balakrishnan v Union of India Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  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?
  No. Where the whole procedure under the Land Acquisition Act has been followed — notification under s.4, declaration under s.6 and an award under s.9 — the acquisition is a compulsory acquisition, and the fact that the amount of compensation was afterwards settled by negotiation and a sale deed executed does not convert it into a voluntary sale. The Supreme Court allowed the appeal and quashed the s.148 proceedings, and overruled the Kerala High Court's contrary decision in Info Park Kerala.
• CIT v S. Goyanka Lime & Chemical Ltd Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  Is 'Yes, I am satisfied' enough for the sanctioning authority to write?
  No. Recorded that way, the satisfaction is mechanical and shows no sign that the officer's reasons were examined. The s.148 notices were held unsustainable and the department's SLP was dismissed.
• Dy CIT v Zuari Estate Development & Investment Co Ltd Supreme CourtHelps department
  My return was only processed under section 143(1) and now the officer wants to reopen it. Can I say he is changing his opinion?
  No. The Supreme Court held that where a return is accepted under section 143(1), no assessment order is made and no opinion is formed, so the change of opinion objection simply does not arise. The point was held to be squarely covered by Rajesh Jhaveri Stock Brokers. The Bombay High Court had quashed the reopening notice without addressing this contention at all, and its judgment was set aside. The Tribunal's order, which had merely followed the High Court, went with it, and the appeal was remitted to the Tribunal to be decided on merits.
• Sasi Enterprises v ACIT Supreme CourtHelps department
  The firm never filed its returns and the assessments were made under s.144. Can we get the s.276CC complaint discharged because the assessment was still being fought?
  No. The Supreme Court held that the s.276CC offence is complete on the failure to furnish the return in due time and is unrelated to the pendency of the assessment. The proviso does not help unless the return was furnished before the end of the assessment year or the tax payable on the total income determined on regular assessment, less advance tax and TDS, is within the statutory figure — and by s.278E the court presumes the culpable mental state, leaving it to the accused to displace it beyond reasonable doubt.
• CIT v Chhabil Dass Agarwal Supreme CourtHelps department
  Can I go straight to the High Court against an income-tax order instead of filing the statutory appeal?
  Ordinarily no. The Supreme Court held that the Income-tax Act supplies a complete machinery for assessment and reassessment, and an assessee cannot abandon that machinery and invoke Article 226. The exceptions are narrow and have to be pleaded and made out — an order passed otherwise than in accordance with the enactment, in defiance of fundamental principles of judicial procedure, under repealed provisions, or in total violation of natural justice.
• Price Waterhouse Coopers Pvt Ltd v CIT Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  You forgot to add back something your own audit report flagged. Is that concealment?
  No. It is a bona fide and inadvertent human error — a computation mistake, not concealment or inaccurate particulars. The audit report disclosed the item, so nothing was hidden, and the penalty was deleted.
• Vijay Kumar Talwar v CIT — when a finding of fact does and does not raise a substantial question of law under section 260A Supreme CourtHelps departmentNo later treatment found
  The Tribunal has decided against my client on the evidence. Is there any route into the High Court under section 260A, and what exactly must I show?
  Only by showing that the finding is perverse in a defined sense. The Supreme Court held that an appeal to the High Court lies only where a substantial question of law is involved, and that a finding of fact gives rise to such a question only where it is based on no evidence, or where relevant admissible evidence was not taken into account, or inadmissible evidence was taken into account, or legal principles were not applied in appreciating the evidence, or the evidence was misread. Finding none of that, the Court upheld the Delhi High Court's dismissal and dismissed the assessee's appeals with costs of Rs 20,000.
• ACIT v Dhariya Construction Co Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  The only thing behind my reopening notice is the Valuation Officer's report. Is that enough?
  No. The Supreme Court held that the opinion of the Valuation Officer is not by itself information on which an assessment can be reopened. The officer has to apply his mind to whatever material he has collected and form his own belief; adopting the valuer's figure is not that.
• Totgars Co-operative Sale Society Ltd v ITO Supreme CourtHelps department
  My society invested surplus funds in short-term bank deposits. Is that interest covered by 80P?
  No. Interest on surplus funds not required for immediate business use is not attributable to providing credit to members or to marketing their produce. It is income from other sources under s.56 and outside s.80P(2)(a)(i).
• CIT v Kelvinator of India Ltd Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  The officer looked at this exact issue in the original assessment and now wants to look again. Can he?
  No. Reopening needs tangible material. A mere change of opinion is not a ground, and where a s.143(3) assessment was made the officer is presumed to have applied his mind — so re-examining the same material is review, which the Act does not permit.
• CIT v Greenworld Corporation Supreme CourtCuts both ways
  The Assessing Officer passed the assessment after being told what to do by the Commissioner. What happens to that assessment, and to a later section 263 order on it?
  An assessment passed on the dictates of a higher authority is without jurisdiction and a nullity. And a Commissioner exercising section 263 cannot use that order to direct reopening of other assessment years; his revisional jurisdiction is confined to the year before him.
• CIT v Alagendran Finance Ltd Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  A reassessment was done in between. Does the two-year clock for s.263 restart from it?
  Not for an item the reassessment never touched. For that item, limitation runs from the ORIGINAL assessment order, because the doctrine of merger does not apply where the subject matter is different.
• ACIT v Rajesh Jhaveri Stock Brokers P Ltd Supreme CourtHelps department
  My return was only processed under 143(1). Does that stop the department reopening it later?
  No. An intimation under s.143(1) is not an assessment, so it does not bar the officer from later starting reassessment proceedings.
• GKN Driveshafts (India) Ltd v ITO Supreme CourtCuts both waysSuperseded by amendment
  You get a s.148 notice. Can you ask why — and must the officer answer?
  Yes. Ask for the reasons in writing. The officer has to give them, and then has to deal with your objections in a reasoned order before going ahead with the reassessment.
• K.M. Sharma v ITO — the 1989 widening of s.150(1) does not revive a year already barred Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  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?
  No, not for a year that was already beyond assessment before 1 April 1989. Section 150(1) was widened with effect from that date to cover a finding or direction in an order of a court in a proceeding under any other law. The Supreme Court held that the widening is not expressed to be retrospective and so operates only from 1 April 1989: it reaches assessments that had not become final by then, and it does not reach assessments that had. Sub-section (2), the Court said, insulates proceedings that have attained finality on the expiry of the prescribed period of limitation, and it refers to the whole of sub-section (1), so it applies to a reassessment proposed on a court's order under another law just as much as to one proposed on an appellate order under the Act. The appeal was allowed with costs, the Delhi High Court's judgment of 24 May 1996 was set aside, and the notices under ss.148 and 142 for assessment years 1968-69 to 1971-72 and 1981-82 were quashed.
• Raymond Woollen Mills Ltd v ITO Supreme CourtHelps department
  The department says the court will not look at whether its reasons are any good. Is that really the test at the reopening stage?
  Largely yes. When the validity of the initiation of reassessment is under challenge, the court asks only whether there was prima facie some material on which the department could reopen. Whether that material is sufficient or correct is not examined at that stage; it is argued in the reassessment. The appeals were dismissed and the reopening was upheld.
• ITO v Purushottam Das Bangur Supreme CourtHelps department
  The officer reopened my assessment the day after he got a letter from an investigation wing. Is a letter like that 'information' enough to reopen?
  Yes, on these facts. The Supreme Court held that a letter from the Deputy Director of Inspection, enclosing financial data on the company extracted from the Bombay Stock Exchange Directory, was definite information on which the Income-tax Officer could form the belief that income had escaped assessment. The data showed book value, earnings and dividends rising while the Calcutta quotations fell, which supported the inference that the quotations were manipulated and the real value of the shares was far higher than the sale price. Issuing the notice the next day, without further inquiry, did not show a failure to apply his mind. The High Court's orders quashing the notices were set aside.
• Sri Krishna Pvt Ltd v ITO Supreme CourtHelps department
  I disclosed my hundi loans in the return and the officer accepted them. He now says the same lenders were bogus in the next year. Can he reopen?
  Yes. The Supreme Court held that a false disclosure is not a full and true disclosure. Whether a loan shown in the return is genuine is itself a material fact, not an inference to be drawn by the officer, so an assessee who records bogus loans has failed the duty section 147(a) imposes. That the officer could have investigated at the time, and did so in the following year, does not relieve the assessee of that duty. At the notice stage the enquiry is only whether reasonable grounds exist, not whether escapement is proved. The appeals were dismissed with costs.
• ITO v Ch. Atchaiah Supreme CourtHelps department
  The Department assessed my share of a gain in my own hands years ago and has now issued a notice seeking to assess the same gain in the hands of the association. Has it not already exercised its option?
  There is no such option under the Income-tax Act, 1961. The Supreme Court held that unlike section 3 of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922 — which expressly allowed the officer to charge either the association of persons or the members individually — section 4 read with section 2(31) of the 1961 Act contains no words giving any such choice, and that the officer 'can, and he must, tax the right person and the right person alone'. It follows that the fact that a wrong person has been taxed on an income does not preclude the Assessing Officer from taxing the right person on it, whichever course is more beneficial to the Revenue; the person wrongly taxed has his own remedies. Where Parliament intended to give a discretion under the 1961 Act it said so expressly — the Court pointed to section 183 as the example.
• Phool Chand Bajrang Lal v ITO Supreme CourtHelps department
  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?
  Yes. The Supreme Court dismissed the assessee's appeal and upheld the reopening. Where specific, reliable and relevant information comes into the officer's possession after the assessment, exposing the falsity of what the assessee said, that is not a change of opinion or a fresh inference from the same material - it is acting on fresh information. Producing books and a confirmation letter for a transaction later shown to be bogus is not a true and full disclosure. The officer's failure to investigate the doubt during the original assessment does not take away his jurisdiction. Burlop Dealers was confined to its own facts.
• CIT v Sun Engineering Works (P) Ltd Supreme CourtHelps department
  Since the assessment is open again, can you use the reassessment to raise claims you missed the first time?
  No. Reassessment proceedings are for the benefit of the revenue. You cannot reopen matters concluded in the original assessment, or press claims you failed to make or which were rejected — that would turn the reassessment into an appeal in disguise.
• CIT v Onkar Saran and Sons Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  I concealed income in my original return, and repeated the same figures in the return I filed after a section 148 notice. Which year's penalty law applies - the old one or the one in force when the later return went in?
  The law in force when the original return was filed. The Supreme Court dismissed the Revenue's appeals and held that where multiple returns are filed for a year, the law applicable to penalty proceedings is that in force on the date of the original return, if any. It is settled since Brij Mohan that penalty is governed by the law on the date of the offending return; the question was which return is the offending one. Since a penalty on reassessment can be quantified by reference to the income originally returned, the same return must also fix the date of the concealment.
• R.K. Upadhyaya v Shanabhai P. Patel Supreme CourtHelps department
  My reassessment notice was posted on the last day of the limitation period but reached me three days later. Is it time barred?
  No. The Supreme Court allowed the Revenue's appeal and vacated the Gujarat High Court's order. Under the 1961 Act a clear distinction is made between issue of a notice and service of it. Section 149 says no notice under section 148 shall be issued after the limitation has lapsed, so once a notice is issued in time jurisdiction vests in the officer. Section 148(1) requires service before the order of assessment is made: the mandate is that reassessment shall not be made until there has been service. Service is therefore a condition precedent to the order, not to jurisdiction. Here the notice went by registered post on 31 March 1970, the last day, and that sufficed.
• K.P. Varghese v ITO Supreme CourtHelps taxpayerSuperseded by amendment
  The AO says I sold below market value and wants to tax the difference. Can he do that?
  Not on the gap alone. Section 52(2) applied only where the consideration had actually been understated; a difference of more than fifteen per cent between fair market value and the declared price was not by itself enough, and the burden of establishing actual understatement lay on the Revenue.
• Kishinchand Chellaram v CIT Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  They have a letter from a bank that you have never seen. Can they use it against you?
  No. Material collected behind your back and relied on against you must be disclosed to you, with an opportunity to meet it. Because the bank's letter was never shown to the assessee, the addition could not stand.
• Parashuram Pottery Works Co Ltd v ITO Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  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?
  No. The Supreme Court quashed notices under section 148 issued more than four years after the assessment years. The mistake was the Income-tax Officer's own: he had computed depreciation from departmental records and overlooked the ceiling that the aggregate of all depreciation cannot exceed original cost. The assessee's duty is to disclose the primary facts fully and truly; it does not extend to telling the officer what inference to draw or instructing him on the law. Nothing in the returns was shown to be incorrect. Without the omission or failure limb, the officer had no jurisdiction beyond four years.
• ITO v Lakhmani Mewal Das Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  How strong does the officer's material have to be before he can reopen?
  Strong enough to have a live link with the belief. Material that is vague, indefinite, distant or far-fetched will not do. The statute says reason to believe, not reason to suspect.
• Gemini Leather Stores v ITO Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  The Income-tax Officer found my undisclosed drafts during the original assessment, questioned my partner about them, and then did nothing. Can he reopen years later saying I failed to disclose them?
  No. The Supreme Court quashed the notice. The Income-tax Officer had himself discovered the drafts, put them to a partner of the firm, recorded in his best judgment assessment order that the money must belong to the firm, and then failed to bring the amounts to tax. Once he had all the primary facts it was for him to make the enquiries and draw the inferences. His failure to do so was plainly an oversight, and he could not use section 147(a) to remedy an error resulting from his own oversight. Section 143 was cited in the notice; the proceedings were quashed.
• CIT v Electro House Supreme CourtHelps department
  The Commissioner's show cause notice before revising my assessment was defective. Does that knock out his jurisdiction to revise at all?
  No. The Supreme Court held that the revision section, unlike the reassessment section, prescribes no notice at all. It requires only that the Commissioner give the assessee an opportunity of being heard before he reaches his decision, not before he begins the enquiry. That requirement belongs to natural justice, not to jurisdiction. A breach of it may make the resulting order illegal, but it does not take away the Commissioner's power to proceed. Since no notice was a condition precedent, the question what the notice should have contained did not arise. The Calcutta High Court's contrary view was set aside.
• Sheo Nath Singh v Appellate Assistant Commissioner Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  The recorded reasons for reopening my assessment say only that I am believed to have made secret profits and believed to have received a large sum. Is that reason to believe?
  No. The Supreme Court quashed the notices. The words reason to believe mean the belief of an honest and reasonable person on reasonable grounds; the officer may act on direct or circumstantial evidence but not on mere suspicion, gossip or rumour. He acts without jurisdiction if the reason for his belief does not exist or is not material or relevant to the belief the section requires, and the court can always examine that, though it cannot investigate the sufficiency of the reasons. Here the recorded reasons stated no material fact at all - they were themselves expressed as beliefs, an obvious self-contradiction.
• Chhugamal Rajpal v S.P. Chaliha Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  The sanctioning authority just wrote 'yes' and signed. Is that a sanction?
  No. The officer had set out no reason for concluding it was a fit case, and the Commissioner merely noted the word yes and signed beneath it. Neither s.147 nor s.151 was satisfied, so the officer had no jurisdiction.
• CIT v Bhanji Lavji Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  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?
  No. The Supreme Court held that once the assessee has fully and truly disclosed the primary facts necessary for assessment, the officer cannot start reassessment on a change of opinion. He may have drawn a wrong legal inference from the disclosed facts, but that does not make him competent to reopen. The burden is also placed where it belongs: if failure to disclose is alleged, it is for the officer to establish it, not for the assessee to prove there was no concealment. The assessee owes no duty to instruct the officer on questions of law, such as that profits were embedded in receipts.
• Baladin Ram v CIT Supreme CourtHelps department
  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?
  The financial year, and yes he can reopen. The Supreme Court held that where income is found to come from an undisclosed source, for which no accounts are kept and no previous year has been chosen, the only way it can be assessed is as income of the ordinary financial year. So investments of about Rs 27,000 made in the Sarpat and bamboo business between December 1943 and February 1944 fell in the financial year 1943-44 and were assessable for 1944-45, not 1945-46. Disclosing them in the 1945-46 proceedings was no disclosure for 1944-45, so section 34(1)(a) was attracted.
• ITO v Murlidhar Bhagwan Das — a finding is only what the year under appeal actually required Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  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?
  Probably not. A Constitution Bench of five judges construed the second proviso to s.34(3) of the 1922 Act — the ancestor of s.150 — and held by three to two that it lifts the time limit only for the year that was actually before the appellate, revisional or reference authority. The majority adopted the Allahabad High Court's definition of “finding” in Pt. Hazari Lal and added that a finding can only be what was necessary for the disposal of an appeal in respect of the assessment of a particular year. A “direction” means one the authority is empowered to give under the sections named in the proviso, and s.31 gave the Appellate Assistant Commissioner no power to order an assessment for a year that was not before him. The words “any person” in the proviso were confined to a person intimately connected with the assessment of the year under appeal. The Revenue's appeal was dismissed with costs. Raghubar Dayal and Mudholkar JJ dissented.
• Calcutta Discount Co Ltd v ITO Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  How much am I actually required to disclose — and can they reopen because the officer drew the wrong conclusion?
  You must disclose the primary facts fully and truly. Drawing inferences from those facts is the officer's job. Getting that inference wrong is not your failure and does not justify reopening.
• Biswajit Deb v Union of India High CourtHelps taxpayerJudgment not reachable
  The recorded reasons admit the AO had no time to verify my transactions. Is the reopening valid?
  No. The Gauhati High Court quashed the s.148 notice on two independent grounds: an officer who records that he could not identify the transactions for want of time has formed no reason to believe, and the s.151 approval was mechanical.
• Asha Dubey v Union of India High CourtHelps taxpayer
  They issued a 148 notice in my late husband's name. Can they just issue a fresh one now?
  Not if the s.149 period has run out. Allahabad held that a notice on a dead person is void ab initio and that an order quashing such a notice is not a 'finding or direction' under s.150(1), so it cannot be used to reopen limitation.
• Rajesh Somandas Sachdev v ITO High CourtHelps taxpayer
  I filed my return very late, only after a section 148 notice and after the complaint was filed, but my TDS exceeded my tax and I am owed a refund. Can the prosecution for not filing continue?
  No. The Bombay High Court quashed the complaint. Clause (ii)(b) of the proviso to section 276CC bars prosecution where the tax payable on the total income determined on regular assessment, reduced by advance tax and tax deducted at source, does not exceed the prescribed threshold. Here tax deducted at source was Rs 2,54,788 and the return, accepted by the assessment order of 26 December 2018, showed a refund of Rs 1,64,340 due, which the Department admitted. Following Guru Nanak Enterprises, the Court held the prosecution wholly unwarranted and an abuse of the process of law, and noted that the sanctioning Commissioner had not considered the tax already deducted.
• Synokem Pharmaceuticals Ltd v ACIT High CourtHelps departmentNo later treatment found
  The Supreme Court remitted my JAO reassessment case and gave four weeks to amend. Will the High Court actually let me amend to challenge s.147A?
  Not as of right. The Delhi High Court refused. Delhi had already held in T.K.S. Builder Pvt. Ltd. that the Faceless Assessing Officer and the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer have concurrent jurisdiction, so s.147A took nothing away from this petitioner; the writ petition had in any event already been dismissed. The court held that whatever little remained to be argued had been washed away by the amendment and rejected the amendment application as misconceived.
• Bharat Electronics Employees Co-op Credit Society v CCIT High CourtHelps taxpayer
  Our co-operative credit society filed its return late and lost the section 80P deduction under section 80AC. The Chief Commissioner has rejected our section 119(2)(b) condonation application for want of sufficient cause. Is that rejection sustainable?
  No, not on these facts. The Andhra Pradesh High Court set aside the Chief Commissioner's order refusing to condone the delay and directed that the return be treated as filed within time. The Court held that co-operative societies became liable to file returns only on the Finance Act, 2018 amendment, that a society run with minimal staff and unaware of the provisions is itself in genuine difficulty, and that the authorities must take a liberal approach towards co-operative societies in the teeth of CBDT Circular No. 13/2023. It did not decide the section 80P claim; that was left to be dealt with in assessment.
• Genesys International Corporation Ltd v ACIT High CourtHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  We claimed s.10AA on our SEZ unit without first setting off the losses of our other units, and the officer now wants to reopen the assessment to undo it. Is that a good reason to reopen?
  No. The Bombay High Court held that the very premise of the reopening - that the s.10AA deduction should have been given only after setting off the losses of the ineligible units - is in the teeth of the Supreme Court's decision in CIT v Yokogawa India Ltd, so it could not found a reason to believe income had escaped. The other two grounds also failed: the six month repatriation condition was introduced only by the Finance Act 2024 and did not apply to assessment year 2017-18, and the fact that the claim was made in the return under 'any other amount allowable as deduction' rather than in the s.10AA schedule was explained by the return utility itself. The notice was quashed as a change of opinion.
• Gstaad Hotels Pvt Ltd v Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax High CourtHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  My section 35AD deduction was examined and allowed in scrutiny. Four years later the department wants to reopen and treat part of it as revenue expenditure so the loss runs under section 72 for eight years instead of indefinitely under section 73A. Can it?
  Not on these facts. The Bombay High Court quashed the s.148 notice, the two orders disposing of objections and all consequential proceedings, holding that where the original assessment was completed under s.143(3) and the reopening is beyond four years, the first proviso to s.147 requires a failure to disclose fully and truly all material facts, and a bald assertion of such failure without identifying which fact was not disclosed will not do. The Court expressly did not decide whether the expenditure was capital or revenue.

The 60 strongest entries are summarised here. The other 143 entries are listed in full below, and each has its own page.

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.