Reshmi Jain Vs DCIT (ITAT Gauhati)
Omnibus 153D Approval for 10 Assessees Is No Approval at All: Guwahati ITAT Quashes Entire Search Assessments
Guwahati ITAT, Guwahati Bench, in a batch of appeals led by Reshmi Jain, Karishma Jain & Others Vs DCIT (ITA Nos.306 to 310/GTY/2019; AYs 2015-16 & 2016-17; order dated 18-12-2025), quashed the entire search assessments framed u/s 153A r.w.s. 143(3) solely on the ground of invalid and mechanical approval u/s 153D.
The Tribunal found that the Additional CIT had granted a single, consolidated approval dated 28-12-2018 covering 10 assessees/entities and multiple assessment years, without any indication of year-wise or assessee-wise application of mind. The approval letter did not even record that the draft assessment orders were examined, reducing the statutory safeguard u/s 153D to a mere rubber stamp exercise.
Relying on binding precedents including PCIT vs Anuj Bansal (Delhi HC & SC), ACIT vs Serajuddin & Co. (Orissa HC, affirmed by SC), PCIT vs Sapna Gupta (Allahabad HC) and PCIT vs Shiv Kumar Nayyar (Delhi HC), the Tribunal reiterated that approval u/s 153D is an in-built protection for the assessee, requiring independent application of mind for each assessee & each assessment year. Grant of approval for multiple cases in one go was held to be humanly impossible and legally unsustainable.
Rejecting the Revenue’s plea that the Addl. CIT was otherwise involved in the assessment process, the Tribunal held that statutory approval cannot be presumed or inferred—it must be explicit, reasoned and demonstrable from the record. Once the foundation approval failed, the entire superstructure of assessment collapsed.
Accordingly, the ITAT quashed the approvals u/s 153D as well as all consequential assessments, allowing all appeals in full, without entering into the merits of additions such as alleged bogus LTCG. The ruling reinforces that mechanical or omnibus approvals will vitiate search assessments in toto
FULL TEXT OF THE ORDER OF ITAT GAUHATI
