Supreme Court upholds Bombay HC ruling Dismisses Reopening Assessment against Genesys International Corps [Read Judgement]

In a recent case, the Supreme Court upheld the Bombay HC ruling that dismissed the reopening assessment against Genesys International Corps. The Special Leave Petition (SLP) arose out of impugned final judgment and order dated 24-03-2025 in WP No. 2845/2022 passed by the High Court of Judicature at Bombay.

A division bench of Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice K.V. Viswanathan found that there is no good ground to interfere with the impugned order passed by the High Court and dismissed the Special Leave Petition.

Genesys International Corp. Limited, the petitioner concerns the assessment year 2015-16. The petitioner challenges a notice under 148 of the Income-tax Act (‘the Act’) dated 30 March 2021, an order dated 8 February 2022, disposing of the petitioner’s objection to reopening the assessment and draft assessment order dated 14 March 2022.

The petitioner filed its return of income on 30 November 2015. A notice was issued on 10 July 2017 under Section 142(1), and upon considering the petitioner’s reply, the Assessing Officer (AO) made the original assessment order on 20 December 2017.

After the expiry of 4 years from the end of the relevant assessment year, the AO issued the impugned notice dated 30 March 2021 under Section 148 seeking to reopen the assessment. By letter dated 20 May 2021, the reasons for such reopening were furnished to the petitioner.

The petitioner filed its objections to the reopening on 24 June 2021. The petitioner has pleaded that a different set of reasons was supplied to it by yet another letter dated 4 August 2021. This was followed by a notice under Section 142(1), which the petitioner replied to on 22 December 2021.

On 8 February 2022, the AO rejected the petitioner’s objection to the reopening and issued a draft assessment order on 14 March 2022. As noted earlier, the reasons for reopening were first furnished to the petitioner by letter dated 20 May 2021. After the petitioner filed objections on 24 June 2021, the reasons were refurnished to the petitioner by yet another letter dated 4 August 2021. The only difference between the two sets of reasons is that paragraph 5 of the letter dated 20 May 2021 is found missing in the letter dated 4 August 2021.

The record shows that in the original assessment proceedings, specific queries were raised in this regard, and the petitioner responded to them. It was only upon consideration of such responses that the original assessment order dated 20 December 2017 was passed.

The Bombay High Court observed that “the jurisdictional parameters for reopening the assessment beyond 4 years cannot be said to have been satisfied in this case. This was nothing but the case of mere change of opinion. It is well settled that proceedings to reopen an assessment are not akin to review proceedings. This is also not a case where there was any failure on the petitioner’s part to disclose fully and truly all material facts necessary for the assessment.”

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