National Faceless Assessment Centre, has notified the “Standard Operating Procedure for Assessment Unit under the Faceless Assessment provisions of section 144B of the Act”, dated August 3, 2024. Paragraph N of the order under the heading “Process of assessment”, in clause N.1.3 thereunder provides that a period of seven days be given to the assessee for obtaining response from issuance of show-cause notice. Held, that the show-cause notice was issued on March 22, 2024. It was also clear that sufficient time was available to the Assessing Officer to pass an assessment order even if he were to grant seven days’ time to the assessee to file a reply to the show-cause notice. However, the Assessing Officer granted only two days’ time at the first instance and thereafter extended the time by another two days, which apart from being not sufficient, was certainly not in accordance with the time to respond to the show-cause notice, as prescribed under the Standard Operating Procedure. The Assessing Officer, had arbitrarily exercised jurisdiction by granting an extension of only two days. Such approach on the part of the Department was clearly in breach of the Standard Operating Procedure, which had also resulted in a breach of the principles of natural justice, which guarantees to the assessee a fair and reasonable opportunity to respond to the show-cause notice under the procedure prescribed, in undertaking the assessment proceedings. This had surely caused a prejudice to the assessee. Hence the order dated March 27, 2024 was quashed and set aside.