THE Mumbai tribunal has recently said that for the purpose of scrutinising the assessee’s income, the assessing officer (AO) can issue a notice only for the limited scope as against loss, exemption and allowance or relief, which in his opinion is inadmissible, and not beyond that.The assessee filed the return declaring the income earned from sub-letting a premises as income from business. The AO selected the case for scrutiny and issued a notice for assessing the income as income from other sources.The assessee contended that the scrutiny notice was beyond its scope.
The tribunal observed that the provisions of scrutiny are very limited, and therefore, it can operate only against the loss, exemption and allowance or relief claimed, which are inadmissible. Therefore, the change of the head with regard to income from the business to other sources falls out of the limited scope of the scrutiny assessment. Accordingly, the notice was considered as invalid.
