Reassessment beyond four years fails without fresh material or nondisclosure; mere change of opinion cannot sustain reopening.

Reopening of an assessment beyond four years under the Income-tax Act was unsustainable where the original assessment was completed under Section 143(3), the assessee had disclosed all material facts during scrutiny, and no fresh tangible material supported the alleged reasons to believe. A reopening based only on re-verification of the same claim amounted to a mere change of opinion, which cannot justify action under Section 147. Because the statutory proviso for reopening after four years requires a failure to fully and truly disclose material facts, and that threshold was not met, the reassessment notice and the order rejecting objections were quashed.

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Issues: Whether reassessment proceedings initiated under Section 148 of the Income-tax Act, 1961, after expiry of four years from the end of the relevant assessment year, were valid in the absence of any failure by the assessee to fully and truly disclose all material facts and in the absence of fresh tangible material giving rise to reasons to believe under Section 147.

Analysis: The original assessment had been completed under Section 143(3), and the record showed that the assessee had furnished all material facts and particulars called for during the scrutiny proceedings. The reopening was founded on no fresh material and was based only on a verification of the same claim, which amounted to a mere change of opinion. In a case where reopening is sought beyond four years, the proviso to Section 147 requires a clear failure on the part of the assessee to make a return or to disclose fully and truly all material facts necessary for assessment. That statutory threshold was not satisfied here, and the stated basis did not constitute the objective reasons to believe required by law.

Conclusion: The reassessment notice and the order rejecting the objections were held to be unsustainable and were quashed.

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