ITAT held that the assessment reopening against an NRI assessee...

ITAT held that the assessment reopening against an NRI assessee was invalid due to jurisdictional defects. The AO from Ward-34(3)(5), Mumbai lacked jurisdiction over the NRI assessee's case, which should have been handled by International Taxation authorities. Despite the Revenue's attempt to invoke section 292BB to cure procedural defects, ITAT found no merit in this argument, noting the AO was aware of the assessee's NRI status when issuing the section 148 notice. Following the precedent in Nimir Kishore Mehta, ITAT concluded that all proceedings including the section 148A show cause notice, order under section 148A(d), and subsequent section 148 notice were conducted without proper jurisdiction and were therefore bad in law. Consequently, the entire reopening proceedings were quashed and decided in favor of the assessee.