Caishen Enterprise LLP Vs Assistant Commissioner (Bombay High Court)
Bombay High Court has set aside a reassessment notice issued under Section 148 of the Income Tax Act, 1961, to Caishen Enterprise LLP for the Assessment Year 2019-20. The court’s decision, delivered recently, hinged on a critical procedural flaw: the notice was issued by a Jurisdictional Assessing Officer (AO) rather than a Faceless Assessing Officer, which the law now mandates.
The petition, filed by Caishen Enterprise LLP, initially contained an inadvertent error, referencing Assessment Year 2017-18 instead of the correct 2019-20. The court permitted the petitioner to rectify this mistake by substituting the relevant documents, acknowledging it as an excusable oversight.
The primary contention raised by the petitioner was that the Section 148 notice suffered from a “fatal defect” because it was not issued by the prescribed Faceless Assessing Officer. This procedural requirement has been a point of contention in numerous tax litigations following the introduction of the Faceless Assessment Scheme.
Caishen Enterprise LLP argued that its case was squarely covered by a previous ruling of a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court in Hexaware Technologies Ltd. V/S Assistant Commissioner of Income-tax, Circle 15(1)(2) [(2024) 162 taxmann.com 225 (Bombay)]. The Hexaware judgment had previously established that a Section 148 notice issued by a Jurisdictional AO, when the Faceless Assessment regime applies, is invalid.
