Case Law Details
Dayanidhi Maran Vs ACIT (Madras High Court)
Section 148 speaks about “the issuance of notice where income has escaped assessment”. Section 148(2) stipulates that “the Assessing Officer shall, before issuing any notice under this Section, record his reasons for doing so”. Whether the said provision can be interpreted as if recorded reasons by the Assessing Officer should be communicated along with the notice. The very purport of the Act is to ensure that the Assessing Officers are acting with reasons and judiciously. The Statute provides that the Assessing Officer should record the reasons only with an object to ensure that the Assessing Officers/Competent Authorities cannot act with callousness and without any basis.
Every actions of the Authorities Competent must be on reasonings and the same must be recorded in The reasons to be recorded by the Assessing Officer for taking decision to reopen the escaped assessment does not mean that such reasons are to be notice directs the Assessee to submit his returns. If the Assessee is of an opinion that he requires the reasons recorded by the Assessing Officer for reopening of the assessment, then he can made a request and accordingly the same shall be furnished by the Assessing Officer to the Assessee.
In the present cases on hand, the request made by the writ petitioner had been complied with and the reasons for reopening of the escaped assessment had been communicated to the writ petitioner. The said propositions are very well recognised by the Supreme Court of India in the case of GKN Driveshafts (India) Ltd. Thus the very provision stating that the Assessing Officer should record the reasons does not mean that the same should be communicated along with the notice itself. The provision is incorporated in order to ensure that the Assessing Officers act with responsibility and make sure that they are reopening the assessment only based on some reasons and the materials available on record. Such provisions provided to avoid the arbitrariness on the part of the Assessing Officer cannot be taken advantage by the Assessee by contemplating the procedures that the reasons so recorded by the Assessing Officer should be communicated to the Assessee along with the notice issued under Section 148(1) of the Act. Such a proposition cannot be appreciated and that is not the intention of the Act itself. Thus, the very arguments advanced in this regard by the writ petitioner deserves no merit consideration.
In case of M/S. Phool Chand Bajrang Lal vs Income-Tax Officer And Another [1993 203 ITR 456], it has been held as follows:-
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