The Delhi bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) held that the notice issued under Section 148 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 by the assessing officer without accessing the return filed by the assessee shall be treated as void ab initio.
The only tangible issue pertains to the validity of the “Reasons recorded for re-opening” of the case.
The Assessing Officer has mentioned that the assessee has not filed the return of income “In this case as per records of the return receipt register, processing on the Income Tax Department (ITD) application system, and also the Demand and Collection Register (DCR) the returns of the assessee is not found to be filed.”
The assessee has submitted the copy of the return filed before the authorities for the relevant Assessment Year vide Ack. No. 9200000650 dated 31 .10.2005 having a PAN No. AAACS3674H along with computation of income.
The Two-member bench comprising of C.M. Garg (Judicial member) and B.R.R. Kumar (Accountant member) held that it can be unequivocally assumed that the Assessing Officer has not even examined the return filed by the assessee, hence the reasons recorded were on a wrong factual basis before issuing of the notice under Section 148 of the Income Tax Act, 1961.
Hence, the notice issued is treated as void ab initio leading to the assessment completed based on such notice as legally invalid.
Thus, the appeal of the assessee was allowed.
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