TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (8) TMI 435
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.... the above appeal on his deceased father name since it was set a side back to AO for de-nova assessment. More particularly, when the reopening notice u/s. 148 was issued on a deceased person. This has caused the delay in filing the appeal with a delay of 9 days and thereby requested to condone the delay in filing the appeal. Ld. Sr. D.R. appearing for the Revenue has no objection in condoning the delay thus the delay of 9 days in filing the above appeal is hereby condoned. 3. Brief facts of the case is that the assessee herein Mr. Vinod Kumar Bhatt was an individual and passed away on 11-02-2011. The assessee sold immovable properties amounting to Rs. 1,21,31,000/- on 26-08-2010 relevant to the Asst. Year 2011-12. However, the assessee has not filed Return of Income declaring the capital gain on sale of properties, which has escaped assessment. Therefore, the assessment was reopened by issuing notice u/s. 148 dated 27-03-2018 in the name of the dead person Shri Kushal Vinodkumar Bhatt which was duly served by Post. However, there was no response from the assessee. Therefore the A.O. issued notices u/s. 142(1) of the Act. In response the deceased assessee's son informed that the ....
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....in law and in facts in setting aside the matter back to the Assessing Officer to examine various grounds raised by the legal heir when the Assessing officer does not have jurisdiction to pass the assessment order. 3. The appellant further reserves its right to add, alter, amend or modify any of the aforesaid grounds before or at the time of hearing of an appeal. 7. Ld. Counsel Mr. Bandish Soparkar appearing for the legal heir of the assessee submitted that the reopening notice u/s. 148 was issued on 27-03-2018 in the name of deceased assessee. Hence the very jurisdiction for the reassessment itself is bad in law. The Legal heir duty bound informed the Assessing Officer the death of the assessee, however the AO without issuing fresh reopening notice, proceeded with the reassessment by impleading the legal heir in the reassessment order is not permissible in law and relied upon following case laws and others: S No Particulars Citation 01 Bhupendra Bhikhalal Desai 131 taxmann.com 40 (SC) 02 Pravinchandra A Shah 154 taxmann.com 616 (Guj) 03 Chandreshbhai J Patel 101 taxmann.com 362 [Guj] 8. Per contra Ld Sr DR appearing for the Revenue....
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....e name of a deceased person is void ab-initio and liable to be quashed. 10. The above view of ours is supported by the judgement of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Bhupendra Bhikhalal Desai [cited supra] by dismissing the Department SLP as follows: "Section 153C of the Income-tax Act, 1961 Search and seizure Assessment of income of any other person (Validity of notice) Assessment years 2011-12 to 2017-18 Original assessee, namely 'B', passed away on 23-4-2017- Assessing Officer issued a notice under section 153C in name of 'B' on 29-3-2019 After receiving said notice legal heir informed Assessing Officer that his father, B had passed away and requested to drop proceedings as notice was issued to a dead person Assessing Officer rejected objections raised by legal heir on ground that no information was provided about demise of B and even after his death income tax returns were filed in name of B for relevant assessment years High Court by impugned order held that impugned notice under section 153C issued against dead person, is unenforceable in law and revenue could not contend that as they had no knowledge about death of assessee, they were entit....
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....tice u/s.148 in his name to reopen assessment and petitioner being heir and legal representative of deceased raised an objection that assessee had already expired and, therefore, notice in his name was not valid, merely because petitioner had informed Assessing Officer about death of assessee and asked him to drop proceedings, it could not be construed that petitioner had participated in proceedings and, therefore, provisions of section 292B would not be attracted and notice under section 148 was to be treated as invalid by observing as follows: "... 18. The question that therefore arises for consideration is whether the notice under section 148 of the Act issued against the deceased assessee can be said to be in conformity with or according to the intent and purposes of the Act. In this regard, it may be noted that a notice under section 148 of the Act is a jurisdictional notice, and existence of a valid notice under section 148 is a condition precedent for exercise of jurisdiction by the Assessing Officer to assess or reassess under section 147 of the Act. The want of a valid notice affects the jurisdiction of the Assessing Officer to proceed with the assessment and thus....