Raj Kumar Vs JCIT (Rajasthan High Court)
The Rajasthan High Court considered a writ petition challenging a notice dated 20.06.2025 issued by the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer (JAO) under the Income Tax Act, 1961. At the outset, notice was issued to the respondent, and counsel accepted notice on its behalf. Both parties agreed that the issue raised in the present petition had already been finally adjudicated by a Coordinate Bench of the same Court in Sharda Devi Chhajer & Anr. vs The Income Tax Officer & Anr. and connected matters decided on 19.03.2025.
The Coordinate Bench had held that notices for assessment and reassessment issued under Section 148 of the Act by a Jurisdictional Assessing Officer suffer from jurisdictional error where they are not issued in accordance with the faceless and algorithm-based system mandated under Section 151A of the Act and the relevant CBDT scheme. It was observed that the statutory framework requires automated allocation and random assignment of assessing officers, and any deviation undermines the legislative intent of transparency, impartiality, and technology-driven assessments. The Court held that the JAO does not have jurisdiction to issue notices under Sections 148 and 148A when the law mandates faceless assessment through algorithm-based allocation. Accordingly, such notices were liable to be quashed, with liberty to the Revenue to issue fresh notices in compliance with the CBDT notification dated 29.03.2022 by designating the Faceless Assessing Officer, while excluding the period spent in litigation for limitation purposes.
