Delhi High Court: In a present writ petition filed challenging the notice dated 31-03-2023 issued under Section 148 of the (‘Act’) seeking reassessment of the petitioner’s Assessment Year (‘AY’) 2013-14. Yashwant Varma*, Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, JJ., while allowing the present petition, held that impugned noticed issued on 31-03-2023, for reassessment of AY 2013-14 falls beyond the ten-year block period as set out under Section / of the , which makes it unsustainable.
The Court stated, “we allow the instant writ petition and quash the notice dated 31 March 2023 referable to Section 148 of the Act.”
It was contended by the petitioner that the notice issued on 31-3-2024 comes under the amended regime of reassessment which came into effect on 01-04-2021. The reassessment had to satisfy the provision made in the first proviso to Section 149(1) of the Act. The said proviso reads as follows:
“Provided that no notice under Section 148 shall be issued at any time in a case for the relevant assessment year beginning on or before 1st day of April, 2021, if [a notice under Section 148 or Section 153-A or Section 153-C could not have been issued at that time on account of being beyond the time limit specified under the provisions of clause (b) of sub-section (1) of this section or Section 153-A or Section 153-C, as the case may be], as they stood immediately before the commencement of the ”
The Court after dealing with additional facts, finds that the impugned notices under Section 148 of the Act was served to the petitioner in pursuance of search investigation which was conducted in the case of the Proform Group on 09-02-2022.
The Court relied on Principal Commissioner of Income Tax1 v. Ojjus Medicare Pvt. Ltd, , wherein the court observed that, “As is evident from the prima facie observations which came to be rendered by us on that occasion, the reassessment which is sought to be initiated for Assessment Year [“AY”] 2012-13 would not sustain bearing in mind the prescription of limitation as contained in Section of the [“Act”] as it stood at the relevant time”
The Court while computing the “the relevant assessment year” from the date of the impugned Section 148 notice stated that, as the AY 2013-14 falls beyond the ambit of ten-year block period as set out under Section 153C/153A, the notice to render reassessment was unsustainable.
| Computation of the ten-year block | No. of years |
| AY 2023-24 | 1 |
| AY 2022-23 | 2 |
| AY 2021-22 | 3 |
| AY 2020-21 | 4 |
| AY 2019-20 | 5 |
| AY 2018-19 | 6 |
| AY 2017-18 | 7 |
| AY 2016-17 | 8 |
| AY 2015-16 | 9 |
| AY 2014-15 | 10 |
The Court further stated that, the notice of reassessment on 31-03-2023 under Section 148 of the Act stands quashed and the instant writ petition is allowed.
[Flowmore v. DCIT, W.P.(C): 3738 of 2024, decided on: 27-05-2024]
*Judgement authored by: Justice Yashwant Varma
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For Petitioner: Sumit Lalchandani, Salil Kapoor, Utkarsh Gupta, Ananya Kapoor & Shivam Yadav, Advocates
For Respondents: Hemant Kumar Yadav, SPC For Resp./ UOI; Shlok Chandra, SSC; Madhavi Shukla, Priya Sarkar, JSCs & Sudarshan Roy, Advocate.
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