Territorial jurisdiction and mandatory notice period requirements made the requisition and block-assessment notice invalid.

CBDT notifications under section 120 governed territorial jurisdiction for requisition powers, and a Director outside the specified territorial area lacked authority to issue a warrant under section 132A; the requisition was therefore invalid and the resulting block assessment could not stand. A notice under section 158BC also had to allow not less than 15 days for filing the block return, so a direction to file it "within 15 days" breached the mandatory requirement. That defect was treated as substantive and not curable under section 292B, rendering the notice bad in law and the block assessment void ab initio.

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Issues: (i) Whether the warrant of requisition issued under section 132A was without jurisdiction because the Director of Income-tax (Investigation), Delhi, lacked territorial jurisdiction under the relevant notification issued under section 120 of the Income-tax Act, 1961; (ii) whether the notice under section 158BC was invalid for requiring the block return to be filed "within 15 days" instead of allowing a period of not less than 15 days.

Issue (i): Whether the warrant of requisition issued under section 132A was without jurisdiction because the Director of Income-tax (Investigation), Delhi, lacked territorial jurisdiction under the relevant notification issued under section 120 of the Income-tax Act, 1961.

Analysis: The territorial jurisdiction of Directors of Income-tax (Investigation) was governed by the CBDT notification issued under section 120, read with the clarificatory notification which limited all-India jurisdiction to section 132 and confined other powers to the territorial areas specified in the schedule. On the facts, the assessee and the seized assets were connected with Uttar Pradesh, where the jurisdiction for such requisition lay with the Director of Income-tax (Investigation), Kanpur. The Director of Income-tax (Investigation), Delhi, therefore had no authority to issue the warrant under section 132A in relation to the assessee.

Conclusion: The warrant of requisition was without jurisdiction and invalid, and the subsequent block assessment could not be sustained.

Issue (ii): Whether the notice under section 158BC was invalid for requiring the block return to be filed "within 15 days" instead of allowing a period of not less than 15 days.

Analysis: The statutory language in section 158BC required that the assessee be allowed a period of not less than 15 days to file the block return. The expression "within 15 days" is materially different from "not less than 15 days" because the latter requires clear days beyond the stated period. The defect was treated as substantive and not curable under section 292B. The notice, therefore, did not comply with the mandatory requirement of the provision.

Conclusion: The notice under section 158BC was invalid and bad in law.

Final Conclusion: Both the warrant of requisition and the block-assessment notice were held to be invalid, with the result that the block assessment was quashed as void ab initio.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the statute prescribes a mandatory precondition for jurisdiction, strict compliance is required; a notice granting a shorter period than the statute permits, or a requisition issued by an authority lacking territorial jurisdiction, is invalid and cannot be cured by section 292B.

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