TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2014 (6) TMI 223
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....ing on behalf of the appellant and Mr. Suresh Ojha, learned counsel for the respondent. Filtering out the unnecessary details, the facts in bare minimum indis- pensable for the present adjudication are that the respondent is an assessee under the Act. A survey under section 133A of the Act was conducted on March 25, 2003, at its business and office premises and, consequently, its books of account and other documents including loose papers pertaining to the assessment year 2003-04 were found and impounded. It submitted its return of income at Rs. 34,889 on September 27, 2003, and eventually following an assessment under section 143(3) of the Act, its taxable income was computed at Rs. 1,52,130. The assessee, thereafter, filed an application....
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....he exercise undertaken under section 148 of the Act. The learned Tribunal by the decision impugned allowed the appeal of the respondent-assessee and dismissed the one raised by the Revenue. This court, while admitting the appeal on July 4, 2011, framed the fol- lowing substantial question of law : "Whether the Tribunal was justified in allowing the assessee's appeal by holding that proceedings of reassessment and issue involved under section 147/148 of the Income-tax Act for the year under consideration (2003-04) are illegal and, therefore, cannot be initiated against the assessee ?" Mr. Bissa, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant, has emphatically argued that in the face of the disclosures surfacing from the document....
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....uments on record and the arguments advanced. The sequence of events recited hereinabove culminating in the impugned decision of the learned Tribunal are not in dispute. Significantly, the learned Tribunal had recorded in clear terms that the Assessing Officer in his order dated March 16, 2005, while making the assessment under sec- tion 143(3) of the Act mentioned about the factum of survey under section 133A as well as the impounding of the documents found in course thereof which remained with the Department since thereafter. That these impounded documents and records were test checked was affirmed as well in the assessment order. The Tribunal noticed that the assessment order under section 143(3) of the Act was made after duly considerin....
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....dent- assessee for the assessment year in question. In this view of the matter, the endeavour on the part of the Assessing Officer to initiate a reassessment proceeding under section 147/148 of the Act on the purported ground that the same records/documents did disclose that the amount of Rs. 33,72,583 had escaped assessment, is unconvincing and untenable as well. Such a conclusion in the singular facts and circumstances of the case, in our com- prehension, does certainly stem from a change in opinion, entertained by the Assessing Officer. It is no longer res integra that a mere change in the opinion of the Assessing Officer after completion of the assessment under section 143(3) of the Act is not a legally approved determinant for valid i....