Reopening of assessment based solely on an audit party's...

Reopening of assessment based solely on an audit party's objection does not satisfy the statutory 'reason to believe' required for reassessment; the audit objection is characterised as an expert opinion and its reliance amounts to a mere change of opinion. The assessing officer's prior detailed scrutiny and disallowance of exemption under Section 80-IA after threadbare inquiry precluded invoking reassessment provisions where the same issue had been considered from all conceivable angles. Where omission arose from the AO's inability to envisage a point, that does not confer power to reopen under reassessment provisions; the departmental remedy available was power of revision rather than reassessment.

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