Allowing the appeal of the revenue the Court held that the Notices under section 148 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (Act) which were the subject matter of writ petitions before the various respective High Courts shall be deemed to have been issued under section 148A of the Act or treated to be show-cause notices in terms of section 148A(b).
The assessing officer within thirty days from the date of the Order should provide to the respective assessees information and material relied upon by.
Further held that, the requirement of conducting any enquiry, if required, with the prior approval of specified authority under section 148A(a) of the Act is dispensed with as a onetime measure and the assessing officers shall thereafter pass orders in terms of section 148A(d) of the Act in respect of each of the concerned assesses.
Also held that all defences which may be available to the assesses including those available under section 149 of the Act and all rights and contentions which may be available to the concerned assessees and Revenue under the Finance Act, 2021 and in law shall continue to be available. Decision to apply to all such notices quashed by High Courts throughout Country . (CA No. 3005 /2022 dt 4-5 -2022 )
The Honourable Supreme Court in its order made some favour to the revenue by exercising its power as available to it under article 142 of the Constitution of India, but I understand that it is just illusionary as the court, by and large, concurred with the findings of honourable High Courts of Allahabad etc. The Court has been generous to the revenue only to the extent that it treated all the notices issued between 01.04.2021 and 30.06.2021 as show cause notice u/s 148A, and it dispensed with the prior approval of PCIT. The Court has further ordered that the procedure as per amended provisions has to be followed, for which it prescribed time frame to provide reasons and allowed assessees to submit their compliances.
The Court has not accepted that the extended time of 3 months notified by the Government is proper and for the extended period the old provisions shall apply and decided that the timeline as prescribed by amended section 149 shall be applicable, meaning thereby the reassessment notices issued for Asst.Yrs. 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 would die their own death and revenue cannot make reassessment for those years and where the income escaped assessment is not more than 50 lacs then only the period of three years shall be available to the revenue for reassessment.
There are cases where the assessees did not go for a writ and complied to notice u/s 148 by filing return of income in response to the notice, as also those who filed a writ still filed return of income in response to notice u/s 148. The order is silent on the fate of such returns already filed.
If after filing of the return in compliance to notice u/s 148 a new notice after complying to new procedure is followed a fresh notice shall be issued u/s 148 then the assessee shall have to file a fresh return in response to new notice increasing compliance burden on the assessees.