TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2018 (6) TMI 1573
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....o appreciate that 'No Notice' under sectionl48 of the 'Act' was served upon the 'appellant' and ex-parte assessment was completed without serving any Notice under section 148 of the 'Act' render the Assessment Order void-ab-initio. 3. BECAUSE, the authorities below failed to appreciate that the purported 'Reasons' as reproduced in the Assessment Order are No 'Reasons' in the eyes of Law. The so called 'Reasons' do not show any application of mind on part of the 'AO' to show that any Income liable for Tax has escaped assessment warranting recourse to Notice under section 148 of the Act. 4. BECAUSE, the Assessment framed under section 144 of the 'Act' is also bad on ....
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.... the time of hearing." 2. Ground Nos. 2 and 4 are not pressed. Rejected as not pressed. 3. The AO recorded the following reasons to believe escapement of income: "Information of Non PAN AIR through CIB has been received that assessee has deposited Rs. 25,20,000/-. Assessee is not filing return of Income. It is reasons to believe that assessee has concealed income chargeable to tax which has escaped assessment. Thus it is a fit case for action u/s 147 of the Act. Proposal is put up for kind approval of Jt. CIT Range-3, Mathura." 4. Apropos Ground No.3, this issue was raised by the assessee before the ld. CIT(A) too, by way of Ground No.3, that 'Because, the purported 'Reasons' as reproduced in the Assessment Order are No 'Reasons' in ....
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....that 'Sijwali' (supra) has not taken into consideration that receipt of money is prima facie evidence against the assessee. It has been contended that in para 15 of the said order, it has been held that adequacy of material before the AO at the time of recording of the reasons cannot be gone into by the Court. Reliance has been placed on 'M/s Ginni Filaments Ltd. Vs. CIT', order (copy filed) dated 31.03.2011, passed by the Hon'ble Jurisdictional Allahabad High Court in Writ Tax No. 1402/2004. 8. We have heard the parties and have perused the material on record. 9. In 'Sunil Kumar Saraswat' (supra), following 'Sijwali' (supra), it has been observed, inter alia, as follows: "12. Now, in keeping with "Bir Bahadur Singh Sijwali" (supra), th....
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....- deposited in the bank account has escaped assessment. This belief he has arrived on the basis of the fact that return of income has not been filed, but where the income is not above the minimum amount assessable, i.e. where income is below exemption limit, the return is not required to be filed and therefore, any deposit in a bank account will not automatically lead to the inference that it was chargeable to tax. The Assessing Officer ought to have verified from the books of accounts whether this deposit was recorded in regular books or not. If it was recorded in the regular books, then it could not be said that this deposit was automatically liable to taxed. Deposit in the bank account can be covered by various receipts recorded in the c....
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....f the considered view that unless the Assessing Officer asked for an explanation from the assessee before initiating action Under Section 148(1) and recorded the reasons there for or verifies the deposits with the books of accounts, if maintained, the Assessing Officer could not have come to the belief that income chargeable to tax has escaped assessment. Filing of return or not filing of return would depend whether final income as per Profit & Loss account drawn by the assessee on the basis of books of accounts reflect taxable income or not. Merely not filing of return of income will not result; into an inference that any deposit in the bank account was chargeable to tax and therefore, had escaped assessment, even if that amount exceeded m....