Section 147/148 Reassessment is for the benefit of Revenue benefit and not for the benefit of assessee

The assessee in the present case is an individual, who filed his return of income for the year under consideration showing his residential status as “resident” and offering to tax his entire global income therein. The said return was processed by the Assessing Officer under section 143(1) and the income as returned by the assessee was accepted by the Assessing Officer vide his intimation dated 26.12.2012 issued under section 143(1) of the Act. Thereafter the assessee realized the mistake committed by him in showing his status as “resident” in the return of income instead of “non-resident”. He also realized that the entire global income was wrongly offered to tax by him in the said return instead of only the income earned in India. He, therefore, filed an appeal against the intimation issued by the Assessing Officer under section 143(1) before the ld. CIT(Appeals) seeking a direction from the ld. CIT(Appeals) to the Assessing Officer to issue notice under section 147 and to determine his correct income liable to tax in India. The ld. CIT(Appeals) did not find merit in the appeal of the assessee and dismissed the same.

As rightly submitted by the ld. D.R. in this regard, when the income declared by the assessee in his return of income was accepted by the Assessing Officer vide an intimation issued under section 143(3), he could not be said to be aggrieved by the said appeal so as to give him a right to file an appeal before the ld. CIT(Appeals). Moreover, the prayer made by the assessee in the said appeal to the ld. CIT(Appeals) for directing the Assessing Officer to issue notice under section 147/148 in order to enable the assessee to declare the correct income, was also not tenable as the ld. CIT(Appeals) was not empowered to do so and the provisions of section 147/148 even otherwise are for the benefit of the Revenue and not for the benefit of the assessee. If there was any mistake on the part of the assessee in filing his return of income, which was duly accepted by the Assessing Officer under section 143(1), the filing of appeal before the ld. CIT(Appeals) was not the proper remedy to correct the same. I, therefore, find no infirmity in the impugned order of the ld. CIT(Appeals) dismissing the appeal filed by the assessee before him and upholding the same, I dismiss this appeal filed by the assessee.