AI Drafter 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (12) TMI 196
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....2022. 3. The Petitioner had filed his original Return of Income on 23.02.2016 declaring a total income of Rs. 3,38,520/-. 4. Subsequently, the assessment of the Petitioner for the year under consideration i.e., A.Y. 2014-15 was reopened vide notice dated 30.06.2021 issued under Section 148 of the Act. The said notice was undisputedly issued under the old regime i.e., under the law which was repealed by Finance Act, 2021. 5. In UOI V/S Ashish Agarwal [(2022) 444 ITR 1 (SC)], the Hon'ble Supreme Court held that notices of the present nature were deemed to be a notice under Section 148A(b) of the Act. This was by invoking Article 142 of the Constitution of India. Further, the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the said decision issued certain directions to be followed by the Assessing Officer by modifying the orders of various High Courts. The relevant portion of the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court is reproduced hereunder: "8. ... Therefore, we propose to modify the judgments and orders passed by the respective High Courts as under:- (i) The respective impugned Section 148 notices issued to the respective assessees shall be deemed to have been issued und....
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....action, the Petitioner filed a Writ Petition, inter alia, challenging the said notice under Section 148 and the order under Section 148A(d) of the Act which was lodged as WP(L) No.2907 of 2023. This Writ Petition was disposed of vide order dated 03.04.2024 and notice under Section 148 of the Act and the order under Section 148A(d) of the Act were quashed on the ground of limitation following the decision of this Court in the case of Godrej Industries Ltd V/S The Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax, Circle 14(1)(2), Mumbai and Ors. [Writ Petition No.450 of 2023 decided on 28.02.2024] 10. It appears that the order dated 03.04.2024 in case of the Petitioner was not challenged before the Hon'ble Supreme Court. 11. In the meantime, the Hon'ble Supreme Court dealt with the issue of limitation in respect of matters arising out of Taxation and Other Laws Act, 2020 in the case of UOI V/S Rajeev Bansal reported in [(2024) 469 ITR 46 (SC)]. Detailed findings were given by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the said judgment, which are dealt with later on. 12. On 08.10.2025, a notice under Section 142(1) of the Act was issued by Respondent No. 1 seeking details from the Petitio....
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.... the month of filing of the reply by the Petitioner is directly in the teeth of the findings in the case of Rajeev Bansal (supra). c) Moreover, the decision in the case of Rajeev Bansal (supra) required Respondent No. 1 to first pass an order disposing of the objections and all rights and contentions of the parties, save as otherwise decided in the said decision, were kept open. Respondent No. 1 did not pass any such order and directly proceeded with the reassessment proceedings and passed the impugned order. Since, the order of the Hon'ble Supreme Court was not followed, therefore, the impugned order is bad in law. 16. Per Contra, Ms.Omle, the learned Counsel of the Respondent, submitted that the judgment in case of Rajeev Bansal is applicable to all cases across India. She relied upon the findings in para 115 of the said decision in this regard. Further, she submitted that since, the Petitioner did not file any reply to the notice under Section 148A(b) of the Act, therefore, the notice under Section 148 of the Act cannot be treated as beyond limitation. This is because as per Section 148A(d) of the Act, the order had to be passed within one month from the end of t....
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....f Rajeev Bansal (supra). Our view is fortified by the fact that even as on date, the Revenue has been challenging various orders of High Courts on the very issues considered in case of Rajeev Bansal (supra) and consistently the Hon'ble Supreme Court has been disposing off such SLPs filed by the Revenue. If the view of Respondent No. 1 is correct that the decision in case of Rajeev Bansal (supra) covers all cases, then there was no need to file any further SLPs before the Hon'ble Supreme Court. Thus, it appears that even the Revenue is of the same view that the decision in case of Rajeev Bansal (supra) applies only to the matters listed and tagged along with the said case. Further, it is also pertinent to note that the decision in case of Ashish Agrawal (supra) wherein the Hon'ble Supreme Court gave findings that the said judgment applies to all cases PAN India, was the subject matter of consideration in the case of Rajeev Bansal (supra). The Assessees argued that the decision in case of Ashish Agrawal (supra) does not apply to cases where the notices under Section 148 was not challenged by way of writ petition before any High Court. This contention was dispelled by the ....
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.... for issuing reassessment notices under Section 148, which fell for completion from 20 March 2020 to 31 March 2021, till 30 June 2021. All the reassessment notices under challenge in the present appeals were issued from 1 April 2021 to 30 June 2021 under the old regime. Ashish Agarwal (supra) deemed these reassessment notices under the old regime as show cause notices under the new regime with effect from the date of issuance of the reassessment notices. The effect of creating the legal fiction is that this Court has to imagine as real all the consequences and incidents that will inevitably flow from the fiction. East End Dwellings Co. Ltd. v. Finsbury Borough Council [1952] AC 109. [Lord Asquith, in his concurring opinion, observed: "If you are bidden to treat an imaginary state of affairs as real, you must surely, unless prohibited from doing so, also imagine as real the consequences and incidents which, if the putative state of affairs had in fact existed, must inevitably have flowed from or accompanied it."] Therefore, the logical effect of the creation of the legal fiction by Ashish Agarwal (supra) is that the time surviving under the Income-tax Act read with TOLA will be avai....
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....;(ii) take a decision under Section 149A(d) based on the available material and the reply of the assessee; and (iii) issue a notice under Section 148 if it was a fit case for reassessment. Once the clock started ticking, the assessing officer was required to complete these procedures within the surviving time limit. The surviving time limit, as prescribed under the Income-tax Act read with TOLA, was available to the assessing officers to issue the reassessment notices under Section 148 of the new regime. 112. Let us take the instance of a notice issued on 1 May 2021 under the old regime for a relevant assessment year. Because of the legal fiction, the deemed show cause notices will also come into effect from 1 May 2021. After accounting for all the exclusions, the assessing officer will have sixty-one days [days between 1 May 2021 and 30 June 2021] to issue a notice under Section 148 of the new regime. This time starts ticking for the assessing officer after receiving the response of the assessee. In this instance, if the assessee submits the response on 18 June 2022, the assessing officer will have sixty-one days from 18 June 2022 to issue a reassessment notice u....
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....after 1st April 2021, the law in force on that date would have to be applied. The Supreme Court also held that applying this principle to test whether a notice under Section 148 is issued within the period of limitation one would have to give effect to the terms of the first proviso to Section 149(1)(b). The first proviso to Section 149(1)(b) enacts that a notice issued after 1st April 2021 has to be issued within such time as was permissible under the unamended Section 149(1)(b). Thus, for Assessment Year 2014-15, the notice under Section 148 under the unamended provisions, could have been issued in terms of Section 149(1)(b) by 31st March 2021. The Supreme Court thereafter held that in order to construe whether the notice was issued within the period of limitation, one would have to give effect to the provisions of TOLA as well as the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Ashish Agarwal and the requirements of the provisos to Section 149. The Supreme Court held that during the period from the date of issuance of the deemed notice under Section 148A(b) and the date of the judgment in Ashish Agarwal (supra) [i.e. from 29th June 2021 to 4th May 2022] the Assessing Officers were d....
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....s to the Petitioner to respond 4. No reply filed by the Petitioner 5. 08-06-2022 Two weeks' time granted elapsed. 6. 25-07-2022 Order passed under section 148A(d) 7. 25-07-2022 Notice issued under section 148 8. 08-10-2025 Notice under section 142(1) 9. 17-10-2025 Reply filed by the Petitioner 10. 17-10-2025 Impugned assessment order passed 23. From the table set out above and applying the law laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Rajeev Bansal the remaining days for conclusion of the procedure for passing of an order in terms of Section 148A(d) and issuance of notice under Section 148 of the Act would be one day. In the present case the period of one day would expire on 9th June 2022. However the notice issued under Section 148 is dated 25th July 2022 and is therefore time barred, in as much as it is issued after the surviving period. 24. The view that we have taken is not only supported by a decision of this Court in the case of Hitesh Ramniklal Shah V/S Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax & Ors. [Writ Petition No.4164 of 2025 decided on 11th November 2025] and Gurpreet Singh V/S DCIT [176 taxm....