Jurisdiction to reopen assessment cannot rest on incomplete returns when signed and verified returns were filed; writ relief was maintainable.

A writ petition under Article 226 was maintainable because the challenge was to the jurisdiction to reopen assessment by issuing notices under section 148, and the Act provided no direct effective remedy against those notices; a later appeal against an assessment order was too remote to bar relief. Notices under section 148 were without jurisdiction because the assessee had filed returns that were signed and verified, and an incomplete return is not to be treated as non-existent where the assessment machinery under section 143 was already engaged; the officer had to proceed under the assessment provisions instead of reopening on the footing that no return had been filed. The impugned notices were quashed.

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Issues: (i) Whether the writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution had abated or was barred because an alternative remedy was available under the Income-tax Act, 1961. (ii) Whether notices issued under section 148 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 were without jurisdiction where the assessee had filed returns that were signed and verified but did not contain all prescribed particulars.

Issue (i): Whether the writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution had abated or was barred because an alternative remedy was available under the Income-tax Act, 1961.

Analysis: The remedy contemplated by the amended Article 226 is an immediate remedy for the injury complained of. The challenge here was to the jurisdiction to reopen assessment by issuing notices under section 148, not to any assessment order already made. The Act did not provide a direct remedy against the issue of such notices, and the possibility of a later appeal against an assessment order was only remote and not an effective answer to the grievance. A civil suit was also not treated as the relevant statutory remedy for the purpose of clause (3) of Article 226 in these circumstances.

Conclusion: The writ petition had not abated and was maintainable.

Issue (ii): Whether notices issued under section 148 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 were without jurisdiction where the assessee had filed returns that were signed and verified but did not contain all prescribed particulars.

Analysis: A return that is incomplete or not in full conformity with section 139 may be invalid, but it does not follow that it can be ignored as if no return had been filed. Section 143 provides the procedure where a return is not correct and complete, and the statutory scheme shows that such a return must still be dealt with in assessment proceedings. Only where the document is so deficient that it is not a return in the eye of law, such as where it is unsigned or merely a blank signed form, may it be treated as non-existent. On the facts, the returns were filed, signed and verified, and assessment proceedings had already commenced under section 143.

Conclusion: The notices under section 148 were without jurisdiction and liable to be quashed.

Final Conclusion: The assessee succeeded in challenging the reopening notices, and the court granted writ relief by quashing the impugned notices and restraining further action on them.

Ratio Decidendi: A return that is filed, signed and verified cannot be disregarded as non-existent merely because it is incomplete; in such a case, the Income-tax Officer must proceed under the assessment machinery and cannot invoke section 148 unless there has in truth been no return in the eye of law.

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