The Assessing Officer framed assessments under section 153A read with section 143(3) for A.Ys. 2008-09 to 2013-14. The ITAT quashed the assessments on the ground that the Additional Commissioner of Income-tax had granted a consolidated approval under section 153D for several assessment years, instead of granting separate approval for each year. On appeal by the Revenue, the Delhi High Court held that section 153D mandates prior approval for each assessment year and that the approving authority must independently apply its mind to the material on record and the draft assessment order for each year. The requirement of approval is a substantive safeguard and cannot be reduced to a ritualistic formality or rubber-stamping exercise. A consolidated approval for several assessment years, without independent consideration of the facts and material relevant to each year, defeats the legislative intent and is contrary to the express language of section 153D. The Court followed its earlier decisions in PCIT v. Shiv Kumar Nayyar and PCIT v. Anuj Bansal, as well as the principles recognised by the Allahabad High Court in PCIT v. Sapna Gupta and the Orissa High Court in ACIT v. Serajuddin and Co. The Court held that the issue was covered by its earlier decisions and that no substantial question of law arose for consideration. The Revenue\u2019s appeals were dismissed, thereby sustaining the ITAT\u2019s order quashing the assessments. (AY. 2008-09 to 2013-14) (ITA Nos. 806 to 810 and 813 of 2026, dt. 09-10-2026)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
S. 153D: Assessment \u2013 Search and seizure \u2013 Prior approval of Joint Commissioner \u2013 Consolidated approval for multiple assessment years \u2013 Requirement of independent application of mind for each assessment year \u2013 Invalid approval \u2013 Assessments quashed \u2013 Order of Tribunal affirmed.[S. 153A, 153B, 143(3), 260A] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-income-tax-act"],"acf":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9S2Rw-gWG","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65143,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65142\/revisions\/65143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itatonline.org\/digest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}