Chellappan Sankaranathan Vs ACIT (ITAT Chennai)
ITAT Chennai Strikes Down JAO Issued 148 Notice- Only Faceless Unit Has Jurisdiction Post-2022
Chennai ITAT has quashed a reassessment proceeding, holding that a notice issued by the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer (JAO) instead of the Faceless Assessment Unit was without jurisdiction & therefore invalid.
Assessee was issued a notice u/s 148 dated 27.03.2023 by the ITO, International Taxation, Madurai. He objected to the validity of the reassessment on the ground that, by virtue of the CBDT Notification dt 29.03.2022 introducing the e-Assessment Scheme, 2022, such notices had to be issued by the Faceless Assessing Officer (FAO) through the NFAC system, not by the jurisdictional officer.
Tribunal found merit in this contention. Referring to the binding CBDT notification, it observed that reassessment proceedings after 29.03.2022 were required to be centrally allocated & conducted only under the faceless scheme. A notice issued directly by the JAO was in violation of the statutory scheme & therefore invalid.
ITAT drew support from several High Court rulings. The Telangana High Court in Kankanala Ravindra Reddy, Ta Infra Projects & Sri Venkatramana Reddy had consistently held that notices issued by jurisdictional officers after the introduction of the faceless regime were void ab initio. Similarly, the Bombay High Court in Hexaware Technologies Ltd. had quashed reassessment notices issued by JAOs in contravention of the scheme. Importantly, the Supreme Court had dismissed the Revenue’s Special Leave Petition in Deepanjan Roy, which challenged a similar view, thereby allowing the High Court’s ruling to stand .
