Faceless assessment notices must be issued by the proper officer; notices from the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer were invalid.

Issuance of notices by the Faceless Assessment Officer is mandatory where the faceless assessment regime applies, and notices issued instead by the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer cannot be sustained. Following Hexaware Technologies Ltd., the Madras HC held that, absent any stay of the earlier judgment, the impugned notices were invalid. The notices were quashed and set aside, and the petitions were disposed of in favour of the assessees.

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Issues: Whether notices issued by the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer instead of the Faceless Assessment Officer were valid.

Analysis: The Court followed the view taken in Hexaware Technologies Ltd. and held that issuance of the concerned notices by the Faceless Assessment Officer is mandatory. Since the notices in the present matters were issued by the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer and there was no stay of the earlier judgment, the notices could not be sustained.

Conclusion: The notices were quashed and set aside as invalid, and the petitions were disposed of in favour of the assessees.

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