Draft assessment order under Section 144B need not be signed or dated if validly communicated to the assessee.

Section 144B requires valid forwarding of the draft assessment order to the assessee so objections can be filed within time; the draft itself is only a proposed order and need not be signed or dated. The court distinguished this from a notice that is a condition precedent to reassessment under the 1922 Act, and held that the decisive requirement is authentic communication of the draft through the forwarding letter. Because the absence of a signature or date on the draft did not affect the legality of that communication, the assessment proceedings were not invalid and the challenge failed.

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Issues: Whether a draft order of assessment forwarded under section 144B of the Income-tax Act, 1961 was invalid merely because it was neither signed nor dated, and whether such defect rendered the subsequent assessment order a nullity.

Analysis: The statutory scheme of section 144B requires the Income-tax Officer to forward a draft of the proposed assessment order to the assessee where the proposed variation exceeds the prescribed limit. The material requirement is the valid forwarding of the draft so that the assessee may file objections within the statutory time. The court distinguished this procedure from a notice under section 34 of the 1922 Act, where a valid notice is a condition precedent to reassessment. It held that the draft order is only a proposed order, not the final assessment order, and therefore need not itself be signed or dated. What matters is the authenticity of the forwarding letter and the lawful communication of the draft to the assessee.

Conclusion: The absence of a signature or date on the draft order did not invalidate the proceedings, and the challenge to the assessment failed.

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