Jurisdictional Assessing Officer issued notice under section 148 to assessee-Assessee challenged reopening of assessment on ground of lack of jurisdiction of JAO. Court held that  in case similar to assessee, High Court held that where notice under section 148 was issued by JAO instead of FAO, same was to be quashed.  Following the order view notice issued under section 148 by JAO was without jurisdiction.  Assessing Officer issued order under Section 148A(d) and notice under section 148 on 07-04-2022 with approval of Principal Commissioner.  Revenue claimed that period of seven days furnished to assessee to submit reply to notice under section 148A(b) issued on 23-03-2022 was to be excluded for counting period of three years. On writ the Court held that proviso to section 151, inserted by Finance Act, 2023, with effect from 1-4-2023 could not be applied retrospectively to exclude period of seven days in furnishing reply to notice under section 148A(b) by assessee and thus, Assessing Officer could not have assumed exclusion of such a period while passing order under section 148A(d) or issuing notice under section 148 on 7-4-2022. Accordingly the  order under section 148A(d) and notice under section 148 had been issued after more than three years from end of relevant assessment year and prior approval of Principal Chief Commissioner or Principal Director General or Chief Commissioner or Director General was required to be obtained before passing of order under section 148A(d) or before issuance of notice under section 148. Accordingly reopening of assessment without sanction/approval of specified authority in accordance with section 151 was bad in law. Assessee entered into a unilateral Advance Pricing Agreement (APA) with CBDT covering relevant assessment year wherein 17 per cent of net margin was agreed upon as ALP. Pursuant thereto, assessee filed a modified return under Section 92CD and filed Annual Compliance Report in Form 3CEF within time. Subsequently, Assessing Officer issued notices proposing an adjustment in relation to modified return on ground that nil income pursuant to APA was not supported with documentary evidence. He, accordingly, passed reassessment order making an arm’s length adjustment. Reassessment proceedings for relevant assessment year were pending on date of filing of modified return.Furthermore, TPO had not submitted any finding of failure on part of assessee to comply with terms of agreement, which could lead to cancellation of agreement. On writ the Court held that the  Assessing Officer was not vested with jurisdiction to interpret APA as to whether assessee had satisfied terms and conditions of APA and it was only TPO who had jurisdiction over assessee to carry out compliance audit of agreement. In absence of any adverse report from TPO, Assessing Officer was obligated to accept that assessee had complied with terms of APA and thus, Assessing Officer had no jurisdiction to make any adjustment/addition to income disclosed in such modified return. Writ petition was allowed. (AY. 2018-19)