Dahyabhai Narayandas Patel Vs ITO (Gujarat High Court)
The Gujarat High Court, in Dahyabhai Narayandas Patel vs ITO, considered the validity of a notice issued under section 148 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 for Assessment Year 2017-2018. The petitioner challenged the notice dated 28.08.2022 as being time-barred. The notice had been issued during the extended period allowed under the Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation of Certain Provisions) Ordinance, 2020 (TOLA). The Court examined the implications of the Supreme Court rulings in Union of India v. Ashish Agarwal (2022) and Union of India v. Rajeev Bansal (2024), which clarified that notices issued under section 148 post-April 2021 must comply with the “surviving time” limits calculated from the original notice under TOLA.
The Court analyzed the dates of issuance of the original TOLA notices, the dates of information supplied by the Assessing Officer under section 148A(b), and the dates of the petitioner’s replies. For the relevant assessment years, the “surviving time” to issue a valid notice under the new regime was determined. It was found that for the petitioner’s case, the last permissible date to issue the notice under section 148 was 22.08.2022, while the notice in question was issued on 28.08.2022—beyond the permissible period.
