Income Tax Notice issued to Deceased Invalid: Calcutta HC orders to Re-initiate Proceedings against Legal Heirs [Read Order]
Proceedings initiated against a dead person are void, and any continuation without correctly impleading legal representatives is legally unsustainable
The Calcutta High Court has held that an income tax notice issued in the name of a deceased assessee is invalid, and the Revenue must re-initiate reassessment proceedings properly against the legal heirs.
The court, while deciding a writ petition filed by Kripa Shankar Mahawar, Justice Om Narayan Rai ruled that once the Income Tax Department is informed that the original assessee has passed away, the law mandates that all further proceedings must be initiated only in the name of the legal representatives.
The background facts is that a notice under Section 148A(b) was issued in March 2023 to one Laxmi Kant Mahawar, who had died earlier on 12 January 2020.
Although the petitioner had duly informed the authorities of the death and argued that the proceedings had become null and void, the Department continued the reassessment, issuing further notices in the name of the petitioner without mentioning his status as a legal representative.
The final assessment order dated 28 March 2025 even recorded the deceased as the assessee, merely marking the petitioner as “Legal Heir.”
The bench observing multiple inconsistencies, including issuance of notices first to a dead person and later to the petitioner without proper designation as legal heir, held that the entire reassessment process was vitiated.
As per legal principles, proceedings initiated against a dead person are void, and any continuation without correctly impleading legal representatives is legally unsustainable. The Court rejected the Revenue’s argument that such defects were curable.
However, applying the Supreme Court’s decision in CIT v. Jai Prakash Singh, the high court clarified that its decision does not bar the Department from restarting the reassessment in accordance with law.
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The Department was instructed to issue a fresh notice under Section 148 to the legal heirs after following the statutory procedure. The petitioner also has been directed to provide names of other legal heirs when requested, failing which the Department may validly proceed against him alone as the deemed sole legal representative.
Accordingly, the high court set aside both the reassessment notice and orders while granting powers to the income tax department to re-initiate the proceedings.
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