2007 (7) TMI 92

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....ent year 2000-01 on which art assessment order came to be passed. It is not necessary to refer to the various other facts. 5 The Assistant Commissioner of Income-tax issued a notice to the petitioner under section 148 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 ("the Act" for short) setting out therein that the income chargeable to the tax for the assessment year 2000-01 has escaped assessment within the meaning of section 147 of the Act and, therefore, the authority proposed to reassess the income for the said assessment year and calling upon the assessee to file a return in the prescribed form within 30 days. It was mentioned that the notice has been issued after obtaining necessary sanction of the Commissioner of Income-Tax, CIT-IX. By the communicatio....

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....d it could not be said that the documents in the form of Volcker Committee Report cannot be waived as hearsay information since the same has taken the shape of Government record. 7 At the hearing of this petition, on behalf of the petitioners, it is submitted that the reasons to believe as communicated to reopen the assessment are based on no material and consequently the notice under section 148 of the Act has to be quashed and/or the rejection of objections by communication dated June 7, 2007. Learned counsel tried to contend that a perusal of the Volcker Committee Report would indicate that the petitioners had not made any "kick back" payment to the Iraqi Government. 8 A reply has been filed on behalf of the respondents by Shri R. Andi....

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....diction. 9 We have heard learned counsel for the parties. The question is whether prima facie there are reasons to believe, which gave jurisdiction to respondent No. 1 to issue notice under section 148 of the Act. The office memorandum was issued on November 18, 2005. The subject of the memorandum is "Enquiry in respect of entities mentioned in the Volcker Committee Report." The said office memorandum lists the Indian companies. The petitioners' name is shown in one of the lists and appropriate amounts paid as "kick back" are set out. The Volcker Committee Report was put up on the Website after October 27, 2005. The petitioners' assessment for the relevant year was made before that. Therefore, on the date when the assessment order was pass....

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....a remedy of showing cause before respondent No. 1, which, in our opinion, would be an adequate and efficacious remedy. This would, therefore, be a case where this court on the present facts ought not to exercise its extraordinary jurisdiction. We may point out that the hon'ble Supreme Court in GKN Driveshafts (India) Ltd.  [2003] 259 ITR 19 has while disposing of the special leave to appeal observed as under (page 20) "We see no justifiable reason to interfere with the order under challenge. However, we clarify that when a notice under section 148 of the Income-tax Act is issued, the proper course of action for the noticee is to file a return and if he so desires, to seek reason for issuing notices. The Assessing Officer is bound to f....