AI OCR 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2011 (8) TMI 800
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....ner of Income Tax Meerut for special audit under Section 142 (2A) of the Income Tax Act, 1961(In short, the Act). The orders have been challenged on the ground that these were passed without following the conditions requisite for passing the order under Section 142(2A) of the Act namely that there is no finding that the accounts seized from the business premises of the petitioners in the search carried out under Section 132 of the Act are so complex in nature, that it is not possible to compute income of the petitioners and further no opportunity of hearing was given by the Assessing Officer before making the order. There is no interim order in these writ petitions. The petitioners did not cooperate in special audit.....
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....r the exercise of the powers. The factors enumerated in Section 142 (2A) are not exhaustive. The assessee suffers civil consequences and that any order passed is prejudicial to him, thus the principles of natural justice must be held to be implicit. They are required to be applied to minimize arbitrariness. If the assessee is put to notice, he could show that the nature of the accounts is not such as would require appointment of special auditors. The assessee can further show that what the Assessing Officer considers complex is in fact not so. It would also be open to him to show that the same would not be in the interest of the Revenue. The Supreme Court further held that the expression "complexity" in Section 142 (2A) would mean t....
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....-section be passed. As noted above, the learned Additional Solicitor General had pleaded that if we were not inclined to agree with him, the interpretation of the provision by us may be given prospective effect, otherwise the interest of the Revenue will be greatly prejudiced. There is no denying the fact that the law on the subject was in a flux in the sense that till the judgment in Rajesh Kumar was rendered, there was divergence of opinion amongst various High Courts. Additionally, even after the said judgment, another twojudge Bench of this court had expressed reservation about its correctness. Having regard to all these peculiar circumstances and the fact that on December 14, 2006, this court had declined to stay the assessment....
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.... Sahara India (Firm) (Supra) the Supreme Court further held that the requirement of the objective satisfaction of complexity of the accounts and the interest of revenue is coupled with the word "and" which signifies conjunction and not disjunction. The twin conditions of "complexity of accounts" and "the interests of the revenue" are the pre-requisites for the exercise of the power under Section 142(2A) of the Act. In the present case, the petitioner Sri Hemant Joshi, in Writ Petition No.991 of 2001, filed a return based on no accounts. A search under Section 132 of the Income Tax Act was conducted at residential as well as business premises of M/s Saharanpur Associates on 17.3.99 in which the petitioner is a partner and number of i....
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....ary approval in this regard has been accorded by the learned Commissioner of Income Tax, dated 2.3.01 in all group cases recommended by his office vide letter dated 12.2.01. In the counter affidavit the department has filed a letter dated 2.3.01 sent by the Income Tax Officer (Technical) for Income Tax Commissioner Meerut, stating in reference to the letter dated 1.3.01 sent by the Deputy Commissioner, Investigation Circle Dehradun that as proposed under Section 142 (2A) approval is given for appointment of M/s Anurag Singhal and Company, C.A. Tilak Road, Dehradun as auditor. The letter further states that in view of the complexity in relation to the group, the petitioners are requested to get all search issues audited by the audito....