TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2024 (6) TMI 695
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....petitioner impugns the notice dated 31 March 2023 issued under Section 148 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 ["Act"]. The aforesaid notice seeks to reassess the petitioner for Assessment Year ["AY"] 2013-14. 2. Undisputedly, and since the notice was issued on 31 March 2023, it would be the amended regime of reassessment which came into effect from 01 April 2021 which would be applicable. The action for reassessment would thus have to satisfy the provisions made in the First Proviso to Section 149(1) of the Act. The said provision reads as follows: "[149. Time limit for notice.- (1) No notice under Section 148 shall be issued for the relevant assessment year,- (a) if three years have elapsed from the end of the relevant assess....
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.... the 31st day of March, 2021." 3. As is evident from a reading of that provision any action for reassessment pertaining to an AY prior to 01 April 2021 can be sustained only if it be compliant with the timeframes specified under Section 149 (1) (b), Section 153A or Section 153C as the case may be and on the anvil of those provisions as they existed prior to the commencement of Finance Act, 2021. 4. Viewed in that light, it is manifest that the assessment for AY 2013-14 could not have been reopened. 5. This we note bearing in mind the following additional facts. The record would reflect that pursuant to a search and seizure operation conducted in respect of the Alankit Group on 18 October 2019, the petitioner was served a notice und....
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....nt Year ["AY"] 2012-13 would not sustain bearing in mind the prescription of limitation as contained in Section 149 (1) (b) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 ["Act"] as it stood at the relevant time. 4. We note that while dealing with a similar question of computation of the time limit for the "relevant assessment year" as provided under Explanation 1 to Section 153A of the Act, we had in the case of Principal Commissioner of Income Tax-Central-1 v. Ojjus Medicare Pvt. Ltd. [2024 SCC Online Del 2439] held as follows:- "D. The First Proviso to Section 153C introduces a legal fiction on the basis of which the commencement date for computation of the six year or the ten year block is deemed to be the date of receipt of books of acc....
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....n terms of Section 153C, the solitary distinction would be that the previous year of search would stand substituted by the date or the year in which the books of accounts or documents and assets seized are handed over to the jurisdictional AO as opposed to the year of search which constitutes the basis for an assessment under Section 153A. F. While the identification and computation of the six AYs' hinges upon the phrase "immediately preceding the assessment year relevant to the previous year" of search, the ten year period would have to be reckoned from the 31st day of March of the AY relevant to the year of search. This, since undisputedly, Explanation 1 of Section 153A requires us to reckon it "from the end of the assessment....