ACIT Vs Radhakrishna Bimalkumar Private Limited (Calcutta High Court)
The Revenue filed an appeal against the order of the Single Judge allowing the assessee’s writ petition challenging a notice issued under Section 148 of the Income-tax Act, 1961. The appeal was filed with a delay of 426 days. Although the explanation for the delay was not fully satisfactory, the High Court condoned the delay since the appeal involved a question of law.
The principal issue before the Court was whether the notice issued under Section 148 was barred by limitation. The Single Judge had found, on examining the records, that although the notice bore the date and signature of the authority dated 31 March 2021, it was actually uploaded for communication only after 31 March 2021. The Single Judge treated the date of upload as the date of issuance of the notice and relied upon the earlier decisions of the Court in Bagaria Properties and Investment (P.) Ltd. v. Union of India and Manoj Jain v. Union of India.
The High Court noted that these decisions had subsequently been considered by the Supreme Court in Union of India v. Ashish Agarwal. The Supreme Court had modified the High Court judgments and directed that notices issued under the unamended Section 148 between 1 April 2021 and the date of the judgment should be deemed to be show cause notices under Section 148A(b). The Supreme Court further directed that the Assessing Officer should, within 30 days from 4 May 2022, furnish the information and material relied upon by the Revenue to the respective assessees to enable them to respond. It also preserved all statutory defences available to the assessees, including those under Section 149 of the Act.
