TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (7) TMI 739
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....ing grounds of appeal:- 1. That the jurisdictional LD.AO has erred, both in law and in facts, by assuming wrong jurisdiction in reopening the assessment, to issue notice under section 148, which is wholly without jurisdiction, thus reopening was bad in law and procedure, on all the parameters, laid down under the Act. 2. That the Id. AO erred both in law and on the facts in not complying with the mandatory provisions of law & procedure laid down u/s 147 to 153, in relation to both reopening u/s 148 and reassessment, thus reassessment was bad in law and in procedure. 3. That the Id. AO erred both in law and on the facts in not supplying "Reason to believe" to the assesse, in toto, thus reassessment was bad in law and in procedure. ....
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....PB page 166 of assessee's paper book: 4. Upon perusal of the reasons recorded, it is absolutely clear that the Assessing Officer has simply reopened the case on borrowed satisfaction without making any enquiry whatsoever. He has merely relied upon the report of Investigation Wing as well as copies of hand written papers. However, those have never been disclosed in the course of assessment proceedings nor the same has been placed before us. Thus it is highly doubtful about the existence of these relied upon materials. It is also pertinent to reproduce the form for recording the reasons for initiating proceedings u/s 148 of the Act and obtaining the approval of the Ld. CIT-VI, Delhi, as contained in page 168 to 169 of the paperbook submitted....
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....he assessment proceedings. The number of shares subscribed to by the said companies is the same and the amount received has been disclosed by the Assessee. There is no new material which has been found or mentioned in the reasons to believe which were not contained in the information provided by the Assessee prior to the conclusion of assessment under Section 143 (3) of the Act. 13. In fact, the Petitioner, after initially submitting the details of the companies and the shares subscribed to, further provided confirmations from the said companies. The Petitioner also submitted copies of the balance sheets of the said companies for the relevant AYs showing that these amounts were duly reflected therein. The said companies were also assesse....
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....d further information that these companies were non-existent after making further inquiries into the matter. It is clear that the AO did not make any inquiry or investigation, if these companies were in fact 'paper companies'. No effort has been made to establish the connection between the statement of Mr. Navneet Kumar Singhania and the five companies. 16. Mr. Chaudhary's submission that this Court cannot dictate the manner and content of what is to be written in the reasons to believe is correct as a legal proposition. However, the Court has to examine the reasons to believe to see if it satisfies the rigour of the provisions. The observations of this court in Multiplex (supra) are relevant in this respect and are set out b....
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....hat the primary facts were incorrect, the same ought to have been set out in the reasons to believe. That has not been done in the present case. 18. Thus, the Petitioner cannot be said to have failed to disclose fully and truly all the material facts. This being a jurisdictional issue, the assumption of jurisdiction under Sections 147 and 148 of the Act was erroneous. The notice dated 20th March, 2015 and the subsequent order dated 1st February, 2016 deserve to be and are hereby quashed. 19. Before parting with the case, the Court would like to observe that on a routine basis, a large number of writ petitions are filed challenging the reopening of assessments by the Revenue under Sections 147 and 148 of the Act and despite numerous ju....