Gattula Lakshmi Madhavi Vs ACIT (ITAT Visakhapatnam)
Central Circle Cannot Assume Reassessment Powers — Section 148 Notice Issued Outside Faceless Regime Held Void
The Visakhapatnam Bench of the ITAT quashed the reassessment framed under Section 147 and consequential penalties under Sections 270A and 271AAC in the case of Gattula Lakshmi Madhavi v. ACIT, holding that the entire proceedings were void for want of jurisdiction.
The Tribunal held that after the introduction of the Faceless Jurisdiction regime under Section 151A read with the E-Assessment of Income Escaping Assessment Scheme, 2022, only the Faceless Assessing Officer (FAO) is competent to issue notices under Sections 148A and 148. Since, in the present case, both the order under Section 148A(d) and the notice under Section 148 were issued by the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer (JAO), the assumption of jurisdiction itself was invalid.
Rejecting the Revenue’s reliance on DCIT v. Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (SC), the Tribunal clarified that Section 124(3) applies only to objections relating to territorial jurisdiction and does not bar an assessee from challenging inherent lack of jurisdiction, which goes to the root of the matter. The Tribunal relied on binding precedents including Rajeev Bansal (SC), Hexaware Technologies (Bom HC), Kanakanala Ravindra Reddy (Telangana HC), and the Andhra Pradesh High Court decision in Kishan Kumar Thotakura.
