TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (3) TMI 228
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....r Assessment Year [AY]. 2. Undisputedly, and since the notice was issued on 06 February 2024, 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: 2014-15. "[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 assessment year, unless the case falls under clause (b); [(b) if three years, but not more than ten years, have elapsed from the end of the relevant assessment ye....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
.... 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 2014-15 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 a third person on 02 March 2022, the petitioner was served a notice under Section 148 on 06 October 2023. Undisputedly and for the purposes of reopening, bearing in mind the proviso to Section 149 (1), action could have been initiated on....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....oks of accounts by the jurisdictional AO. E. The reckoning of the six AYs' would require one to firstly identify the FY in which the search was undertaken and which would lead to the ascertainment of the AY relevant to the previous year of search. The block of six AYs' would consequently be those which immediately precede the AY relevant to the year of search. In the case of a search assessment undertaken in 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 u....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....d of the assessment year". This distinction would have to necessarily be acknowledged in light of the statute having consciously adopted the phraseology "immediately preceding" when it be in relation to the six year period and employing the expression "from the end of the assessment year" while speaking of the ten year block." 5. In view of the aforesaid, we find ourselves unable to sustain the impugned notice dated 13 March 2023 issued under Section 148 of the Act. 6. The writ petition is accordingly allowed and the impugned order dated 18 May 2023 disposing off the objections of the petitioner is hereby quashed. We in consequence also quash the notice dated 13 March 2023 purporting to commence proceedings under Section 1....