Arvindkumar Mahendrakumar Goyal Vs ITO (ITAT Surat)
Time-Barred Reassessment Notice Quashed: ITAT Annuls Section 148 Proceedings Beyond Limitation
The Surat Bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal quashed the reassessment for AY 2019-20 after holding that the notice issued under section 148 was barred by limitation and therefore void ab initio.
The Tribunal noted that although notice under section 148A(b) was issued on 24.03.2023, the outer time-limit to issue a valid notice under section 148 expired on 07.04.2023. Since the impugned notice was actually issued on 10.04.2023, it fell outside the statutory time frame. Relying on the Supreme Court decision in Union of India v. Rajeev Bansal (2024), the ITAT held that any reassessment initiated on the basis of a time-barred notice is invalid in law.
Consequently, the reassessment proceedings—where addition had been made under section 69A based on alleged dumb documents found in a third-party search—were quashed without going into the merits. The assessee’s appeal was allowed in full.
FULL TEXT OF THE ORDER OF ITAT SURAT
This appeal has been filed by the assessee against the order dated 03.11.2025 passed by the Ld. Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals), National Faceless Appeal Centre (NFAC), Delhi (hereinafter referred to as the “Ld. CIT(A)”), under Section 250 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the “Act”) for Assessment Year 2019-20.
