The Madras High Court held that the assessment order passed under section 143(3) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 against a dead person without issuing a notice to legal heirs is void.
Prema Rengarajan, the petitioner who is the legal heir of the original assessee, challenged the order dated 31.03.2023, passed under Section 143(3) of the Income Tax Act. The assessment order was passed against the original assessee on 21.12.2019, wherein, the return of income submitted by the said assessee was accepted and the entire proceedings were closed.
A suo moto revision was taken up by the Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, PCIT, Madurai, and by an order dated 29.03.2022, it was reversed and the entire issue was remitted back to the original authority.
The assessee passed away on 14 .02.2023 while the original authority conducting the enquiry. The death of the original assessee was promptly informed by the legal heirs to the original authority on 24.02.2023. Thereafter, the original authority has chosen to issue notice to each of the legal heirs on 24.03.2023, fixing the hearing date as 28.03.2023. Since there was no response from the legal heirs of the original assessee, the impugned order has been passed.
The petitioner submitted that the impugned order has been passed against the dead person. On the other hand, the Department pointed out that after the death of the original assessee, a separate notice has been issued to the legal heirs of the original assessee. Since they have not responded, the impugned order came to be passed.
It was viewed that the original assessee passed away on 14.02.2023 and notice of hearing was fixed on 28.03.2023, no ample opportunity was given to the legal heirs of the deceased assessee.
A single-judge bench comprising Justice R Vijayakumar set aside the writ petition and remanded the matter to the original authority for affording the due opportunity to the legal heirs of the original assessee to put forth their case.
Further directed the original authority to dispose of the matter after giving due opportunity to both parties within a period of 90 days from the date of receipt of a copy of this order.
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