ITAT Delhi Quashes 21 Assessments Over Invalid Section 153D Approval

By CA Vijayakumar Shetty Income Tax Judiciary August 1, 2026

TaxGuru Citation: 2026 taxguru.in 9965
Case Name: Virender Gupta Vs ACIT (ITAT Delhi)
Appeal Number: Only available for paid members
Date of Judgement/Order: Only available for paid members
Related Assessment Year: 2012-13
Courts: All ITAT, ITAT Delhi

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Virender Gupta Vs ACIT (ITAT Delhi)

Delhi ITAT Quashes 21 Search Assessments for Invalid Common Approval Under Section 153D

The Delhi ITAT allowed 21 miscellaneous applications and recalled its earlier common order after finding that it had failed to adjudicate the assessees’ additional legal ground challenging the validity of the section 153D approval. The Tribunal accepted that the legal ground had been duly raised but remained undecided, warranting recall of the earlier order under section 254(2).

On merits, the Tribunal held that the common approval granted under section 153D by the Additional CIT for multiple assessees and multiple assessment years did not satisfy the statutory requirement. Relying on the Supreme Court decisions in PCIT v. Anuj Bansal and the Delhi and Allahabad High Court rulings in Shiv Kumar Nayyar, MDLR Hotels (P.) Ltd., Subodh Agrawal, Sapna Gupta, and Siddarth Gupta, it held that approval under section 153D must be granted separately for each assessee and for each assessment year after due application of mind.

Since the impugned assessments had been framed on the basis of an invalid common approval, the Tribunal held them to be in violation of section 153D and quashed all 21 assessments. Consequently, the miscellaneous applications as well as the main appeals were allowed, and all other issues on merits were rendered academic.

Cases Discussed

FULL TEXT OF THE ORDER OF ITAT DELHI