The Bombay High Court (HC) in its recent judgment quashed the re-assessment notice secondary email address when the primary address was provided.
Lok Developers, the petitioner is a registered partnership firm which was carrying on real estate development business and is challenging the reassessment notice dated 28th March 2021, for the Assessment Years (AY) 2015-16, 201617 and 2017-18 issued under section (u/s) 148 of the Income Tax Act,1961 the show cause notice for proposed variation in the draft assessment order dated 25th March 2022 and assessment order u/s 144B read with (r.w) s.144, a notice of demand u/s 156 of the Income Tax Act.
The main question before the court was that subsequent proceedings initiated by the revenue authorities for non-compliance of notice u/s 148 under the Income Tax Act would be vitiated on account of notice u/s 148 of the Act being served on the secondary email id registered with PAN instead of the registered primary email id or updated email id filed with the last Return of Income.
It was evident that the AO erred in issuing a notice on the secondary email address when there was a primary email address given by the petitioner. It is common knowledge that a secondary email address has to be used as an alternative or in such circumstances when the authority is unable to effect the service of any communication on the primary address.
Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur & Justice Kamal Khata viewed that the AO ought to have sent the notice u/s 148 to both the primary address and the email address mentioned in the last Return of Income filed to preempt a jurisdictional error on account of valid service.
In the case of Mrs Chitra Supekar vs ITO, it was held that “the AO needed to have checked if there was a change of address before initiating a proceeding; and that a valid service of notice under section 148 is a condition precedent lest it would be a jurisdictional error.”
The Court quashed and set aside the notice dated 28th March 2022, and all consequential proceedings including the show cause notice for proposed variation dated 25th March 2022 and assessment order u/s 144B r.w s.144 of the Income Tax Act.
Subscribe Taxscan Premium to view the JudgmentSupport our journalism by subscribing to TaxscanAdFree. Follow us on Telegram for quick updates.
