TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2019 (7) TMI 304
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....dia is situated at Mumbai. Petitioner's bank accounts are in Mumbai. The petitioner had filed the return of income for the concerned assessment year at Mumbai and most significantly the impugned notice has been served by the Assessing Officer to the petitioner at Mumbai. A part of cause of action has therefore arisen within the limits of this Court. Learned counsel therefore contended that this Court would have jurisdiction to entertain this petition. 3. On the other hand, learned counsel for the Department submitted that no part of cause of action has arisen within the local limits of this Court. The location of the petitioner would not give jurisdiction to the Court to entertain the petition. With the facility of electronic filing of returns any one can file the returns from anywhere in the country. Mere place of filing of the return would also therefore not be decisive. The impugned notice has been issued by the Assessing Officer situated at Hyderabad. Year after year the petitioner was assessed by the same authority. The petitioner has not raised any objection to be assessed by the said authority. Mere service of impugned notice to the petitioner at Mumbai would not mean ....
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....ner is wrong and misleading. It is not a second notice, but the same notice sent to as many email IDs as possible to ensure definite service. The Notice No.ITBA/AST/S/148/2017-18/1009439072(2) mentioned at the top of the notice is evidence enough. If it was a second notice, it would bear different Notice number. Further, the Petitioner claimed that the notice was served on the authorized representatives of the Petitioner at Mumbai. This is again a misrepresentation of facts by the Petitioner. An email ID is a virtual address. It doesn't have any fixed or physical place. An email message can be read/checked anywhere in the World. The Petitioner's attempt to deceive the Hon'ble Court is apparent in its attempt to attribute Mumbai as address to these four email IDs. Even otherwise, it can be seen that out of the four email IDs to which the notice was sent, one ([email protected]) belongs to the assessee-company, two ([email protected]) and [email protected]) to authorized representatives based out of Hyderabad and only one ( [email protected] om ) to authorized representative based out of Mumbai. It is also the Hyderabad based authorized representatives....
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....ssee's willful and continuous submission to a jurisdiction over the years, etc. will decide the jurisdiction of an assessee. The assessee can always request for transfer of jurisdiction and PAN from one region to another, which was never done in the present case. Considering all these facts, the jurisdiction of the Petitioner lies with the office of the First Respondent, which is in Hyderabad, but not Mumbai as claimed by the Petitioner. Therefore, in terms of 269 of the Act, the appropriate High Court in the present case would be the Hon'ble High Court at Hyderabad." 4. The relevant facts thus are that the petitioner is being assessed by the Assessing Officer at Hyderabad from time to time. By the impugned notice the Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax, Hyderabad decided to reassess the return of income for the assessment year 2011-12. Mere fact that the petitioner has registered office at Mumbai, obviously would not give jurisdiction to Mumbai High Court to entertain such a challenge. The location of the petitioner obviously cannot be a determinative factor in the context of territorial jurisdiction. Clause (2) of Article 226 of the Constitution provides that powers ....
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....atter. There cannot be any reason to accept the contention that the Assessing Officer of the petitioners shall have the jurisdiction. Therefore, it cannot be said that any integral part of the cause of action has arisen within the jurisdiction of this High Court. In my opinion, the judgments cited before me by Mr.Bajoria will not extend any help to him on this aspect. Furthermore, as the Supreme Court has held in State of Rajasthan v. Swaika Properties, AIR 1985 SC 1289, mere service of a notice at Calcutta does not constitute an integral part of the cause of action sufficient to acquire jurisdiction by this High Court and to entertain a petition under article 226 of the Constitution. Therefore, I do not have any hesitation to hold in this matter that the service of the notice under section 148 of the said Act or under section 163 of the said Act or the order communicated at Calcutta cannot give any jurisdiction to the petitioner to file this writ application in this High Court and I hold that service of the notice in the instant application cannot constitute any part of the cause of action to entertain this application. Accordingly, on that ground this application must be....
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.... On rare occasions diversion of views between the High Courts is inavitable. If we entertain this petition merely because a small part of the cause of action may have arisen within the jurisdiction of this Court, we would be giving rise to possibility of different legal principles being applied in case of the same assessee on the same issue and possibly in relation to the same assessment year. Any appeal against the original assessment (if at all done) for the assessment year 2011-12 would be governed by the law laid down by Telangana High Court. In the context of challenge to the notice of reassessment, this Court would apply the decisions of Bombay High Court. This would be wholly undesirable. 11. It is not unknown to law that in the context of territorial jurisdiction of the High Court, even if it is found that a small portion of the jurisdiction may have arisen within the High Court, the Court would on the principle of convenience may refuse to entertain the jurisdiction. In case of Serious Fraud Investigation Office Vs. Rahul Modi and another (2019) 5 Supreme Court Cases 266, the Supreme Court observed that in case of an offence which is triable by the Special Court establi....