The Supreme Court set aside assesse’s demand for re opening of assessment proceedings against her. The three member bench of the Supreme court pointed out that the tribunal itself had appropriate authority to deal with such matters and found no reason for the courts to get involved in the matter.
In this case proceedings were initiated u/s 147,( for the reopening of assessment proceedings against assessee) u/s 148 (the issuance of notice wherein any income is found to have escaped re-computation, assessment or reassessment )of the Act. Later on notices u/s 142(1)[to conduct a preliminary investigation into the mismatch between the income tax return filed by the assessee and the information available to the AO] was issued fixing compliance on 02/02/2016. On that date, nobody attended and nobody submitted any written submissions. Therefore, the Assessing Officer issued notice penalty u/s 271(1)(b)[provides for a penalty if a taxpayer is found to have concealed income or furnished inaccurate particulars of income] of the Income Tax Act.
The petitioner had argued before the CIT( A ) that the search under Section 132 had abated, and the proceedings for the year were abated under the provisions of Section 153A of the Act. The petitioner asserted that there was no non-compliance on her part. Additionally, the petitioner contended that since the assessment under Section 153A was completed under Section 153A read with Section 143(3) of the Act, no penal provisions under Section 271(1)(b) should have been invoked, leading to the imposition of a penalty of Rs 10,000.
The Revenue had argued before the CIT(A) that the penalty was imposed for non-compliance with the notice under Section 142(1) of the Income Tax Act.
Revenue had filed an appeal for re opening investigation proceedings u/s 147 of IT Act. Revenue had found incriminating evidence when search was conducted at assessee’s property. Section 153 A of the Income Tax Act gives permission for re opening investigation into an assessee when incriminating evidence is found. The High Court verdict had upheld the Revenue’s authority to do so.
The two-member bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justice Abhay S Okha and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, dismissed the assessee’s contentions for reopening of assessment proceedings by pointing out that the assessee could approach the tribunal itself for dealing with such matters.
The bench observed that the Tribunal shall consider such an application appropriately as per the law. With these directions, the bench dismissed the appeal of the assessee. The Supreme Court allowed the application seeking exemption from filing a certified copy, and the delay was condoned.
Petitioner was represented by Ved Jain, Nischay Kantoor, Akarsh Garg, Subhan Shankar Gogoi and Kaushik Choudhury. Respondent was represented by Ruchir Bhatia,Aseem Chawla, Pratishtha Choudhary, Nivedita, Aditya Gupta, Sunil Agarwal, Shivansh B. Pandya and Utkarsh Tiwari.
Subscribe Taxscan Premium to view the JudgmentSupport our journalism by subscribing to Taxscan premium. Follow us on Telegram for quick updates
