Section 152(3) — the law in short
What the courts have decided on section 152(3), in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.
-
Statutory position — which regime governs a search: the four dating windows and the revived Chapter XIV-B from 1 September 2024
CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
A search was carried out at my client's premises in March 2025 and the notice quotes section 158BC. My whole file of authority is on section 153A. Which law actually applies to him?
Chapter XIV-B, as substituted by section 49 of the Finance (No. 2) Act 2024 with effect from 1 September 2024. Section 158BA(1) applies the revived Chapter to every search initiated under section 132, and every requisition under section 132A, on or after 1 September 2024, and to nothing earlier. Section 153A cannot apply to him at all: sub-section (1) of that section is by its own words confined to a search initiated after 31 May 2003 but on or before 31 March 2021.
-
Batukbhai Premjibhai Kalathiya v ITO — a search in May 2024 is neither a section 153A case nor a block assessment: section 152(3) sends it to the old reassessment code
High CourtHelps taxpayerOverruled
My client was searched in May 2024 and has a section 148 notice for assessment year 2015-16. Which limitation applies, and is the notice good?
The Gujarat High Court held that because the search fell between 1 April 2021 and 1 September 2024, section 152(3) required sections 147 to 151 to be applied as they stood immediately before the Finance (No. 2) Act 2024, and that the first proviso to section 149(1) then imports the section 153A and section 153C time limits. Computing the ten-year outer limit from the end of the assessment year relevant to the previous year of search, as Explanation 1 to section 153A(1) directs, assessment year 2025-26 is the first year and the tenth is 2016-17. Assessment year 2015-16 was therefore beyond the ten years, and the notice was quashed.
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.
