Hon’ble ITAT held that Notice issued u/s 143(2) by the Assessing Officer on 24.09.2018 having been issued in violation of the binding CBDT Instruction No.F.No.225/157/2017/ITA-II dated 23.06.2017. The CBDT u/s 119 of the Act issued the above instructions prescribing mandatory revised formats for all scrutiny notices issued u/s 143(2) of the Act. These instructions are binding on all the Income tax authorities and placed reliance on the decision of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of UCO Bank vs. CIT (237 ITR 889) and Back Office IT Solution Pvt. Ltd. vs. Union of India (2021) SCC OnLine (Del) 2742. Ld. Counsel for the assessee referring to para 3 of the above instructions of CBDT submitted that the Board has directed that all scrutiny notices u/s 143(2) of the Act shall henceforth be issued in the revised formats only. In the present case the
Assessing Officer did not issue the notice in the prescribed revised format and this is a direct violation of the CBDT’s binding instructions.

The issuance of notice u/s 143(2) in proper format is a jurisdictional requirement and any defect therein goes to the root of the assessment proceedings. A notice issued in violation of law cannot confer jurisdiction on the Assessing Officer to proceed with scrutiny assessment. Therefore, the notice dated 22.09.2018 issued u/s 143(2) is invalid and un-enforceable in law.

Therefore, ITAT hold that the assessment framed by the Assessing Officer u/s 143(3) dated 27.12.2019 pursuant to the notice issued u/s 143(2) dated 22.09.2018 which was not in the prescribed format as notified by the CBDT, is bad in law and void ab initio and the same is hereby quashed.