Sri Sat Sahib Housing and Infrastructure Development company Vs DCIT/ACIT (ITAT Delhi)
A search on a third party (Dalal Group) was conducted in September 2017, during which certain documents relating to the assessee were found. However, the Assessing Officer having jurisdiction over the assessee recorded the mandatory satisfaction for initiating proceedings under section 153C only on 19.03.2020.
The Tribunal held that for a non-searched person, the “deemed date of search” is not the original search date of the third party but the date on which the Assessing Officer records satisfaction that seized material belongs to the other person. Therefore, in the assessee’s case, the deemed search year became FY 2019-20 (AY 2020-21).
Counting the permissible block of ten assessment years backwards from AY 2020-21 reached only up to AY 2011-12. Consequently, assessments framed under section 153C for AYs 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11 fell outside this statutory block and were barred by limitation.
Relying on the Supreme Court decision in CIT v. Jasjit Singh and the Delhi High Court ruling in PCIT v. Ojjus Medicare Pvt. Ltd., the Tribunal quashed all three assessments as without jurisdiction and time-barred, leaving the merits of additions open but rendering them academic.
FULL TEXT OF THE ORDER OF ITAT DELHI
These three appeals have been preferred by the same assessee against the respective orders all dated 17.03.2025 of the ld. Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals)-25, New Delhi-110055 [hereinafter referred to as ‘the Ld. CIT(A)] arising out of the respective assessment orders all dated 21.05.2021 passed under section 153C r.w.s. 143(3) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’) by the Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax, Centre Circle-31, New Delhi (hereinafter referred to as ‘the AO’) pertaining to Assessment Years 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11.
