Reassessment & Reopening

Reassessment & Reopening — the law in short

Every authority in this library on reassessment & reopening, with what each one decided.

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 s.148 notice is in the old company's name, but the file shows the department knew about the conversion. Does the 'dead company' line automatically get the notice quashed?
  Not automatically. Where the record independently shows the department always intended the notice for the successor and merely misdescribed it, the Delhi High Court held the error was a technical lapse saved by s.292B, and the Supreme Court dismissed the special leave petition holding the wrong name was 'merely a clerical error'. This is the Revenue's side of the line, and it turns entirely on what the file shows.
• Balakrishnan v Union of India Supreme CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 waysValidity unconfirmed
  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.
• 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.
• 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 already taxed my share of a gain in my individual hands. Can it now assess the same gain again in the hands of the association of persons?
  Yes. The Supreme Court held that under the 1961 Act the Assessing Officer has no option of the kind section 3 of the 1922 Act gave him. He can, and must, tax the right person and the right person alone. If the income is in law the income of an association of persons, only the association can be taxed; and the fact that a wrong person has already been taxed on it does not stop the officer from assessing the right one. The person wrongly taxed has his own remedies, but that is a separate matter.
• Phool Chand Bajrang Lal v ITO Supreme CourtHelps departmentValidity unconfirmed
  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 taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  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 departmentValidity unconfirmed
  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.
• Indian and Eastern Newspaper Society v CIT Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  My assessment is being reopened because an internal audit party told the officer he applied the wrong head of income. Is an audit party's opinion on the law information for reopening?
  No. The Supreme Court held that the opinion of an internal audit party of the Income Tax Department on a point of law is not information within section 147(b). Law, for this purpose, must be created by a formal source - a competent legislature or a competent judicial or quasi-judicial authority - and an audit party performs administrative or executive functions with no power of judicial supervision over the officer's quasi-judicial acts. The part of an audit note that merely points to the law the officer overlooked is information; the part expressing the audit party's own opinion on how that law applies is not, and cannot be taken into account.
• Rajinder Nath v CIT Supreme CourtHelps taxpayer
  An appellate order in my firm's case said the officer is free to assess the amount in the partners' hands. Does that lift the limitation bar for assessing me?
  No. The Supreme Court held that the words finding and direction are limited in meaning. A finding must be one necessary for the disposal of the particular case, of the particular assessee and for the particular year, and directly involved in that disposal; an incidental finding will not do. A direction must be express, necessary for the disposal, and within the power of the authority making it. Saying the officer is free to take action leaves the matter to his discretion and is not a direction at all. Section 153(3)(ii) does not enlarge jurisdiction; it only raises the bar of limitation.
• 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 Gillanders Arbuthnot & Co Ltd Supreme CourtCuts both ways
  I sold shares to a company I control for an agreed price and took the company's own shares, at face value, in satisfaction. Can the officer compute my capital gain on what those shares were really worth?
  No, on these facts. The Supreme Court held that where the transaction is a sale for a price, the full value of the consideration is the price bargained for, not the market value of what was received in satisfaction of it. The agreement said the partners would sell and the company would purchase for Rs 75 lakhs; the clause allotting shares merely provided the mode of satisfying that price. That the firm gained by taking shares issued at face value did not turn the sale into an exchange. Market value can be substituted only where the first proviso applies, and it did not.
• 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.
• 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 taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  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.
• Synokem Pharmaceuticals Ltd v ACIT High CourtHelps departmentValidity unconfirmed
  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.
• Genesys International Corporation Ltd v ACIT High CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  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.
• Sanjay Kumar Bijay Kumar v PCIT High CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  The same cash deposits were already reassessed and accepted at nil. Can they reopen them again?
  No. The Orissa High Court held that where an earlier s.147 proceeding examined these very deposits, found them disclosed and assessed at NIL, and that order went unchallenged, a second reassessment on identical material is a change of opinion and an impermissible review.
• Sapphire Foods India Ltd v ACIT High CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  The officer has reopened my scrutiny assessment because the audit party disagreed with what he allowed. Is that a fresh look or a change of opinion?
  On this decision, a change of opinion. Where the Assessing Officer had all the relevant material during the original scrutiny assessment, a reassessment driven by an audit objection on that same material is an impermissible review, and reopening on the same material is not permitted. The Court also held the notice barred by limitation because the extended period was unavailable in the absence of a failure to disclose material facts.
• Mukundbhai Manubhai Patel v ACIT High CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  I bought mutual fund units, took the dividend the same day and booked a short-term loss. The department calls it fictitious and has reopened. Can it?
  Not on that material alone. The Gujarat High Court quashed a s.148A(d) order and s.148 notice where the reopening rested on an allegation that the fund house had manipulated its distributable surplus: purchasing units and earning dividend on the same day is not impermissible, and allegations against the fund manager cannot be extended to the investor without something showing he knowingly participated.
• Ankit Agarwal v PCCIT High CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  My 148A notice says I never filed a return, but I did. Is that enough to get it quashed?
  Yes, on these facts. The Patna High Court held that where the Insight Portal flag is contradicted by the Department's own records, the 'information which suggests' escapement is missing and the s.148A(b) notice, the s.148A(d) order, the s.148 notice and the demand all fall.
• Sonansh Creations P Ltd v ACIT High CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  The officer says I took accommodation entries and I say I received nothing. Must he have material that the entries exist before he reopens?
  He must. The Delhi High Court set aside a s.148A(d) order and the consequent notice where the information was that eleven entities controlled by an entry operator had given the company fictitious loans, the company denied receiving anything from them and disclosed the bank accounts it operated, and the officer never referred to any material showing that the money had in fact come into those accounts. The Court rejected the contention that at the s.148A(d) stage the officer need form no opinion on the genuineness or veracity of the information; he must be reasonably certain that the alleged entries exist, though he need not conclusively decide that they are accommodation entries. Liberty was reserved to issue a fresh notice if material is found.
• Late Lal Chand Verma (through legal heir) v Union of India High CourtHelps taxpayer
  A notice arrives in the name of someone who has died. Is it valid?
  Not where the proceedings were never begun in their lifetime. Section 159(2)(b) requires the notice to go to the legal representative. Serving a person who no longer exists is a jurisdictional failure and s.292B cannot cure it.
• CIT (International Taxation) v Oracle Systems Corporation High CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  No s.143(2) notice was ever issued. Does s.292BB save the assessment because you took part?
  No. Failure to issue a s.143(2) notice is a fatal procedural defect. Section 292BB deals with an assessee who participated being precluded from objecting to service — it cannot cure the non-issuance of the notice itself.
• T.K.S. Builders P Ltd v ITO High CourtHelps department
  Can the jurisdictional AO issue my s.148 notice, or must reassessment go through the faceless route?
  On this line of authority he can. The Delhi High Court held that the JAO and the faceless assessing officer have concurrent jurisdiction, that the Scheme notified under s.151A does not extinguish the JAO's power to issue notices under ss.148 and 148A, and that s.144B is procedural and is not itself a source of the power to assess or reassess.
• International Hospital Ltd v DCIT High CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  The department is now citing Mahagun Realtors to say an assessment on the amalgamating company is curable. Has the Supreme Court moved away from Maruti Suzuki?
  On the Delhi High Court's considered view in this batch, no. Mahagun Realtors turned on the conduct of that assessee — who suppressed the amalgamation at search, filed a return in the amalgamating company's name recording 'not applicable' against business reorganisation, and litigated throughout in that name — and did not dilute or strike a discordant chord with Maruti Suzuki. Where the successor did tell the department of the merger and the notice or order still went out in the dead company's name, the defect remains fatal.
• Jatinder Singh Bhangu v Union of India High CourtHelps taxpayerHigh Courts differ
  My reassessment notice under section 148 came from my own jurisdictional assessing officer, not through the faceless system. Is that notice good?
  No. The Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed section 148 notices issued by the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer, holding they contravene section 151A read with section 144B and the e-Assessment of Income Escaping Assessment Scheme, 2022 notified on 29 March 2022. Clause 3(b) of the scheme requires issuance of a section 148 notice through automated allocation and in a faceless manner. The Department's reliance on a CBDT office memorandum of 20 February 2023 and a Systems Directorate letter of 19 January 2024 failed: instructions and circulars can supplement but cannot supplant statutory provisions. Liberty was given to proceed in accordance with law.
• Paani Foundation v DCIT High CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  The Assessing Officer has reopened an old year saying my trust could not claim provisioned expenditure as application because s.11 requires the sum to be actually paid. Does that rule apply to years before AY 2022-23?
  The Delhi High Court, at the notice stage, said it was prima facie unable to sustain the assumption of jurisdiction under s.148 on that reasoning, because the Explanation requiring a sum to be treated as applied in the previous year in which it is actually paid was inserted only by the Finance Act 2022 and would not govern AY 2017-18. This is an interim order in a writ petition that is still pending; there is no final adjudication.
• Rahul Sachan v Income Tax Officer High CourtHelps department
  The officer passed the order under section 148A(d) without answering a single point in my reply. Can I get the reassessment quashed on that ground alone?
  No, not on that ground alone. The Allahabad High Court held that section 148A does not oblige the Assessing Officer to deal with objections pointwise or to record detailed reasons. The old requirement of recording a 'reason to believe' has been done away with and replaced by a lighter, more subjective decision that it is a 'fit case' to issue a notice under section 148, on information that suggests escapement. The officer must not act whimsically, on extraneous material, or in ignorance of the reply, but an overall consideration is enough. Reading in a duty to give reasons for rejecting each objection would reintroduce 'reason to believe' by the back door. The petition was dismissed, with all merit defences left open.
• Hexaware Technologies Ltd v ACIT High CourtHelps taxpayerPartly overruled — read this first
  Your s.148 notice came from your own local officer, not from the faceless unit. Does that matter?
  In Bombay, yes. After the CBDT scheme notified under s.151A on 29 March 2022, only a Faceless Assessing Officer acting through automated allocation can issue a reassessment notice. There is no concurrent jurisdiction, and a notice from the jurisdictional officer was quashed.
• Champa Impex P Ltd v Union of India High CourtHelps departmentValidity unconfirmed
  The AO made no enquiry before issuing my 148A(b) notice. Does that kill the reopening?
  No, on the Calcutta view. The Division Bench read the words 'if required' in s.148A(a) as giving the Assessing Officer a discretion, so the absence of a prior enquiry does not by itself vitiate the notice.
• Sevensea Vincom P Ltd v PCIT High CourtHelps taxpayerValidity unconfirmed
  They reopened AY 2016-17 in 2022 for under Rs 50 lakh. Is the notice time-barred?
  Yes. The Jharkhand High Court held the three-year period for AY 2016-17 ended on 31 March 2020, and because the Department itself alleged escapement of only Rs. 39,21,450 the extended ten-year window in s.149(1)(b) was unavailable. The whole proceeding was without jurisdiction.

The 60 strongest entries are summarised here. The other 76 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.