Satya Prakash Chigurupati Vs ACIT (Telangana High Court)
The Telangana High Court disposed of a batch of writ petitions challenging notices issued under Section 148A of the Income-tax Act, 1961, as well as assessment orders passed under Section 147 of the Act. Since the issues involved in all the petitions were similar, the matters were heard together.
During the hearing, counsel appearing for both the petitioners and the Income Tax Department submitted that the controversy raised in the present cases had already been considered by a Division Bench of the High Court in W.P. No. 26304 of 2024, decided on 28 April 2025. It was agreed that the earlier decision squarely covered the issues involved in the present writ petitions.
The Court referred extensively to the observations made in the earlier judgment. The Division Bench had noted that several High Courts had consistently held that certain actions undertaken by the Income Tax Department were violative of the provisions introduced through the Finance Act, 2020 and the Finance Act, 2021. The Court observed that timely disposal of matters already covered by existing precedents would prevent unnecessary accumulation of litigation.
The earlier judgment had held that the impugned notices and proceedings initiated by the Department were neither tenable nor sustainable in law and that the procedure adopted was illegal. Consequently, the notices issued and the proceedings conducted pursuant thereto were liable to be quashed. It was further held that when the initiation of proceedings itself suffers from procedural defects and lacks jurisdiction, the consequential orders passed under Sections 147 and 148 would also automatically stand nullified.
