Recorded reasons must match the reassessment addition, or the reopening becomes void ab initio.

A purely legal jurisdictional ground may be raised for the first time before the Tribunal when all relevant facts are already on record, so the additional challenge to reassessment was admitted. Reassessment is not sustainable where the assessment is completed on an issue different from the recorded reasons for reopening; here, the reopening was based on alleged escapement from time deposit investment and interest income, but the addition was made on long-term capital gain from sale of agricultural land. In the absence of fresh recorded reasons or lawful expansion of the reopening, the reassessment was void ab initio and the addition could not survive.

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Issues: (i) Whether the additional legal ground challenging the reassessment could be admitted for the first time before the Tribunal; (ii) Whether reassessment under section 147 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 was valid when the assessment ultimately made an addition on a ground not forming part of the recorded reasons for reopening.

Issue (i): Whether the additional legal ground challenging the reassessment could be admitted for the first time before the Tribunal.

Analysis: The ground was purely legal in nature and all relevant facts were already on record. No further enquiry into facts was required for deciding the challenge to jurisdiction. The Tribunal therefore admitted the additional ground.

Conclusion: The additional ground was admitted.

Issue (ii): Whether reassessment under section 147 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 was valid when the assessment ultimately made an addition on a ground not forming part of the recorded reasons for reopening.

Analysis: The recorded reasons referred to alleged escapement arising from time deposit investment and interest income. The assessment order, however, made an addition on account of long-term capital gain from sale of agricultural land, which was a different issue. Since no addition was made on the basis of the very reasons recorded for reopening, the reassessment travelled beyond its jurisdiction. Fresh reasons were not recorded and no further authority was taken to sustain a different basis of addition.

Conclusion: The reassessment was held to be void ab initio and the addition on long-term capital gain could not survive.

Final Conclusion: The reassessment was quashed, and the remaining additions were treated as academic and infructuous, resulting in relief to the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: An assessment reopened on specified reasons cannot be sustained by making an addition on an altogether different ground that did not form part of the recorded reasons, unless fresh reasons are recorded and the reassessment is lawfully expanded in accordance with section 147 of the Income-tax Act, 1961.

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