Case Law Details
Hitech Corporation Ltd. (Formerly known as Hitech Plast Ltd.) Vs. ACIT (Bombay High Court)
It is settled law that once a query is raised during the assessment proceedings and the assessee has replied to it, it follows that the query raised was a subject of consideration of the Assessing Officer while completing the assessment. It is not necessary that an assessment order should contain reference and/or discussion to disclose its satisfaction in respect of the query raised. The change of opinion does not constitute justification and/or reasons to believe that income chargeable to tax has escaped assessment.
HC observe that the order disposing the objections, though running into almost 21 pages, does not deal with any of the submissions made by petitioner on merits. The Faceless Assessing Officer, though has listed some 68 orders/judgments to justify why the notice was issued, has not made any effort to set out how those judgments / orders were applicable to the facts and circumstances of the case. He has also not even made an effort to deal with the submissions of petitioner on the facts that these two issues were subject matter of consideration during earlier assessment proceedings. In our view, the Faceless Assessing Officer has only wasted his time in writing such unsustainable order on objections.
FULL TEXT OF THE JUDGMENT/ORDER OF BOMBAY HIGH COURT
1. Petitioner is impugning a notice dated 31st March 2021 issued under Section 148 of the Income Tax Act 1961 (the said Act), for A.Y. 2015-2016 on the ground that the reopening proposed is purely based on change of opinion by the Assessing Officer. It is petitioner’s case that there are two issues which have been raised in the reasons recorded for re-opening and both those issues have been discussed and analysed during the assessment proceedings before the original assessment order dated 29th December 2017.
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