TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (6) TMI 1555
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....ssing Officer had not appropriately considered the response filed by the petitioners. 2. Mr. Sen, learned advocate appearing in support of the writ petition by drawing attention of this Court to the notice issued under section 148A(b) of the said Act for the assessment year 2017-18 dated 23rd March 2024 would submit that the basis for issuing of such notice was an alleged credible information received in high risk transactions module that the assessee had undertaken the transaction amounting to Rs. 24,88,29,320/- during the assessment year 2017-18. Along with the aforesaid notice, the information and materials relied on were also attached, which according to the department, suggested that the income chargeable to tax had escaped the asse....
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....uld submit that admittedly in this case, the petitioners were afforded with opportunity not only to respond but with an opportunity of hearing as well. According to him, it is not the case of the petitioners that there has been non-compliance of the principles of natural justice. The assessing officer had duly considered the response filed by the petitioners and only thereafter had passed the order under Section 148A(d) of the said Act. 4. He would further submit that the order passed by the assessing officer is a well reasoned order. In such order, he has clarified that the assessee has not submitted bank statements of all the bank accounts from where various receipts in the hands of the company can be verified. According to him, the as....
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....n the said notice amongst others, it has been highlighted that from the information and materials available, it would transpire that income chargeable to tax has escaped assessment. The petitioners have duly responded to the same and in the response have also extracted the investigation report relied on by the department. The relevant portion of the reply which extracts the investigation report and the relevant part of the response which deals with such report are extracted hereinbelow:- "Reply Castle Suppliers, AY: 2017-18 Extract of Investigation Report dated NIL 2. Certain other details of the Company has also been provided in the information. These include its PAN and Bank Account Number. Financial Analysis of....
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....ppliers Private Limited, a summon dated 27/10/2021 under Section 131 of thE Income-tax Act, 1961 was sent to the Company, which has remained unanswered, there leaving the issue suspicious. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ The information itself is un-substantiated, unverified and unfounded. The investigation report has stated nature of enquiry as 'Open enquiry' thus as jurisdictional Assessing Officer should ought to make further enquiry and should not based the opinion on 3rd party allegations "from credible sources" which are also unidentified ones. It is worthwhile to mention that Casio Vintra....
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....tion 148 of the said Act, and post the notification of the Finance Act 2021, w.e.f. 1st April 2021, ordinarily, the assessment cannot be reopened unless the provisions of Section 148A of the said Act which incorporates in itself safeguards provided for reopening are complied with. As would appear from the provisions of Section 148 of the said Act that the same deals with the issue of notice where income has escaped assessment. Section 148A deals with the procedure for conducting enquiry, providing ample opportunity prior to issuance of the notice under section 148 of the said Act. As it would further appear from section 148A that the assessing officer, before issuing the notice, can either conduct an enquiry, if required, with prior approva....
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....f the assessee, whether or not it was a fit case to issue a notice under section 148 of the said Act. 8. Admittedly, I find that in the instant case, the assessing officer has concluded that the claim of the assessee is not acceptable in the light of the information provided by the Investigation Directorate. It has further proceeded to hold that the information received from the investigation wing cannot be fully cross-verified with meagre submission made by the assessee. I, however, notice that apart from the aforesaid, no reasons whatsoever has been provided by the assessing officer to dislodge the case made out by the petitioners. Since appropriate safeguards have been provided for in section 148A of the said Act and since an opportun....