What the courts have decided on section 282, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.
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Munjal BCU Centre of Innovation and Entrepreneurship v Commissioner of Income Tax (Exemptions)
High CourtHelps taxpayer
The department only uploaded the show cause notice on the e-filing portal and never emailed it to me, then passed an order when I did not reply. Is that valid service?
No. The Punjab and Haryana High Court held that merely placing a notice on the department's e-portal is not service. Section 282(1) and rule 127 prescribe the ways a communication may be delivered or transmitted, and for electronic delivery rule 127(2)(b) requires it to go to one of the specified email addresses. Nothing in those provisions allows communication to be presumed from an upload. An individual or company is not expected to keep the department's portal open at all times. The order cancelling registration under section 12A(1)(ac)(iii) was quashed and a fresh hearing directed.
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Sada Kesava Reddy v Dy CIT
High CourtHelps departmentNo later treatment found
My belated return showed a refund due, so no tax was payable on regular assessment and the proviso to s.276CC protects me. Can I be discharged on that ground before trial?
Not on this authority. The Telangana High Court held that whether the accused was entitled to a refund, whether there was wilful failure to furnish the return in due time, and whether the notice was validly served are all matters to be decided only after a full trial, and refused to interfere with the dismissal of the discharge application. It also applied the settled position that the benefit of the proviso is available only to a voluntary return under s.139(1) filed before the failure is detected, and not once a notice under s.142(1)(i) or s.148 has been issued.
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Daujee Abhushan Bhandar P Ltd v UOI
High CourtHelps taxpayer
The s.148 notice was digitally signed on 31 March but the e-mail only went on 6 April. Was it issued in time?
No. Signing a notice and issuing it are different acts. A digitally signed notice is an electronic record, and by s.13(1) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 its despatch occurs when it enters a computer resource outside the control of the originator. The notice here was issued on 6 April 2021, after the period in s.149 had run, and was quashed.
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Harjeet Surajprakash Girotra v Union of India
High CourtHelps taxpayer
The reopening notice was posted to the address in my PAN and came back undelivered. The department says it did all it had to. Was the notice served?
No. Rule 127(2) does not stop at the PAN address: where the communication cannot be delivered there, the further proviso requires it to be sent to the address available with the banking company or co-operative bank. The department had the assessee's bank account and had built its case out of the transactions in it, but never sent the notice to the address held by the bank, so service was incomplete and, the s.149 period having run out, the reassessment could not proceed.
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.
