Case Law Details
Surendra Kumar Jain Vs PCIT (Delhi High Court)
The general provision of two years, in the opinion of the Court, has been provided with one important objective i.e. to cater to a specific situation where upon search and seizure operation, if new material is found, already completed assessments are revisited. Had Parliament not prescribed such a specific period of limitation, possibly, the assessee’s concern would have successfully urged that search and seizure proceedings would be confined only to the concerned year in which the search operation took place. It was proposed to tide over such situation. The only provision that prescribed a period of limitation in respect of remands at the relevant time at least in this case is Section 153(2A). In that sense, that period of limitation prescribed for completion of remand (nine months) constituted a special provision, which applies to every class of remand regardless whether they originate from assessments/re-assessments/revisions or search and seizure assessments. In these circumstances, completion of the assessment proceedings for the block period by the impugned order dated 22.12.2017 was clearly beyond the period of limitation. As noticed earlier, the last date by which the remand order could have been worked out validly was 31.12.2016.
Limitation begins (for any purpose under the Act) from the point of time when the departmental representative receives the copy of a decision or an order of the ITAT
FULL TEXT OF THE ITAT JUDGMENT
1. In all these writ petitions, the narrow question agitated by the assessees is that assessment order made on 22.12.2017 under Section 153A read with Section 254 of Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter „the Act’) for Assessment Year 2005-06 and subsequent years (up-to 2012-13) covered by search assessment, were barred and therefore, needs to be quashed.
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