Pitti Holdings Pvt. Ltd. Vs ACIT (ITAT Hyderabad)
When no addition on reopening issue, entire 147 proceeding falls & JAO had no jurisdiction post-Faceless Scheme
Notice by Jurisdictional AO instead of Faceless AO held invalid & reassessment without addition on original issue declared void
Assessee, M/s Pitti Holdings Pvt Ltd, challenged the order of CIT(A)-NFAC dated 16-01-2025 confirming reassessment framed u/s 147 r.w.s 144B.
Two legal defects were urged—
(1) that notice u/s 148 was issued by the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer (JAO) instead of the Faceless Assessing Officer (FAO), contrary to the Faceless Jurisdiction Scheme 2022, and
(2) that no addition was made on the very issue for which reopening was initiated.
Tribunal on Jurisdictional Defect
The Bench noted that both the 148A(b) show-cause notice & 148 notice were issued by the JAO and not by a faceless unit. Following the Telangana High Court decision in Kotha Kanthaiah v. ITO (WP No. 344/2025, 24-04-2025) and its own coordinate Bench ruling in Kanakala Ravindra Reddy v. ITO (156 taxmann.com 478), the Tribunal held that such notices are void ab initio, since only the Faceless Officer is empowered to initiate reassessment after 01-04-2022. Accordingly, both 148A(b) & 148 notices issued by JAO were set aside as invalid. However, considering that the matter is pending before the Supreme Court (Hexaware Technologies Ltd. SLP), the Bench granted liberty to revive the appeal should the apex court take a contrary view.
