AI Drafter 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (12) TMI 160
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....Para 114(d) of the judgment in the case of Sh. Rajiv Bansal (2024) 167 taxman.com 70 (SC). 2. The appellant craves to be allowed to add any fresh ground(s) of appeal and or deleted or amend any of the ground(s) of appeal. 3. Whether on the facts and circumstances of the case and in law, the Ld. CIT(A) while allowing the appeal of the assessee, on the issue of sanctioning authority u/s 151 of the Income Tax Act, 1961, has failed to appreciate that the Pr. CIT was the specified authority u/s 151 to grant sanction for issue of notice u/s 148 as mandated by the law as well as in Para 6.2 (ii) of the CBDT instruction no. 01/2022 dated 11.05.2022, which specifies that the assessment year under consideration is within 3 years and specified authority u/s 151 of the Act for the relevant year is Pr. CIT." 3. The brief facts of the case are that assessee is a private limited company and is engaged in the business of finance and investment. The assessee has e-filed its return of income for AY 2017-18 on 01.11.2017 declaring Nil income. The assessment was originally completed u/s.143 (2) vide order dt. 27.12.2019 by then ITO, Ward 20(3), New Delhi at assessed income of Rs. ....
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....had lapsed on 31.03.2021 and notice u/s 148A(d) and 148 of the Act were issued on 27.07.2022. Therefore, as per section 151 of the Act, the specified authority to grant prior sanction in his case would be Pr.CCIT/CCIT. However, it is clear that the order u/s 148A(d) and notice u/s 148 of the Act dated 27.07.2022 were passed without the prior sanction of the requisite and appropriate specified authority i.e. PCCIT/CCIT as provided in sec 151 of the Act. The appellant contended that the impugned order u/s 148A(d) and notice u/s 148 have been issued by A.O. has obtained the prior sanction u/s. 151 of the Act from the Pr. CIT-7, Delhi who was not the "Specified Authority" as prescribed u/s. 151(ii) of the Act and therefore the impugned order u/s. 148A(d) as well as notice u/s. 148 of the Act dated 27.07.2022 are non-est and lack valid jurisdiction under the law. In support of his contention, the appellant has relied on the Judgement of Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Union Of India Vs Rajiv Bansal in Civil appeal No. 8629 of 2024 dated 03.10.2024. 6.3.2 The submissions made by the appellant above have been considered carefully especially in the light of provi....
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....er expiry of four years from the end of the relevant assessment year Principal Chief Commissioner or Chief Commissioner or Commissioner Section 151(1) of the new regime Three years or less than three years from the end of the relevant assessment year Principal Chief Commissioner or Chief Commissioner or Commissioner Section 151(1) of the new regime More than three years have elapsed from the end of the relevant assessment year Principal Chief Commissioner or Chief Commissioner or Commissioner 74. The above table indicates that the specified authority is directly co-related to the time when the notice is issued. This plays out as follows under the old regime: (i) If income escaping assessment was less than Rupees one lakh: (a) a reassessment notice could be issued under section 148 within four years after obtaining the approval of the Joint Commissioner, and (b) no notice could be issued after the expiry of four years; and (ii) If income escaping was more than Rupees one lakh: (a) a reassessment notice could be issued within four years after obtaining the approval of the Joint Commissioner, and (b) after four years but within six years....
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....ance with actions that fall for completion from 20 March 2020 to 31 March 2021. TOLA will accordingly extend the time limit for the grant of sanction by the authority specified under section 151. The test to determine whether TOLA will apply to Section 151 of the new regime is this: if the time limit of three years from the end of an assessment year falls between 20 March 2020 and 31 March 2021, then the specified authority under section 151(i) has an extended time till 30 June 2021 to grant approval. In the case of Section 151 of the old regime, the test is: if the time limit of four years from the end of an assessment year falls between 20 March 2020 and 31 March 2021, then the specified authority under section 151(2) has time till 31 March 2021 to grant approval. The time limit for Section 151 of the old regime expires on 31 March 2021 because the new regime comes into effect on 1 April 2021. 78. For example, the three-year time limit for assessment year 2017-2018 falls for completion on 31 March 2021. It falls during the time period of 20 March 2020 and 31 March 2021, contemplated under section 3(1) of TOLA. Resultantly, the authority specified under section 151(i) of ....
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....urt waived off the requirement of obtaining prior approval under section 148A(a) and Section 148A(b), it did not waive the requirement for Section 148A(d) and Section 148. Therefore, the assessing officer was required to obtain prior approval of the specified authority according to Section 151 of the new regime before passing an order under section 148A(d) or issuing a notice under section 148. These notices ought to have been issued following the time limits specified under section 151 of the new regime read with TOLA, where applicable." 6.3.4 On bare reading of above recent judgement of Hon'ble Supreme Court and provisions of section 151 of the Act, it is clear that the specified authority to grant sanction to issue order u/s 148A(d) and notice u/s 148 of the Act in the present case would be Pr.CCIT/CCIT as the notice u/s 148 has been issued after 3 years from the end of relevant assessment year. However, in the present case, the AO has passed order u/s 148A(d) and issued notice u/s 148 of the Act after taking sanction from PCIT-7 Delhi and not from specified Authority i.e. Pr.CCIT/ CCIT and therefore it is clear that the impugned notice has been issued by the AO wit....
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....aterial available on record. 9. The ground no 1 & 3 - The Ld. DR submitted that order u/s 148A (d) and the notice u/s 148 of the Act dated 27-07-2022 were passed with the prior approval of the specified authority. We find from the record that notice u/s 148 of the Act was issued by the AO on 25-06-2021 for the A.Y. 2017-18 . The Ld. A.O. in the assessment order mentioned that, the notice u/s 148 of the Act was issued to the assessee on 22-07-2022 with prior approval of the competent authority. As per the provision of section 151 of the Act if the approval is sought for after the expiry of three years the approval shall be obtained from the Pr. Chief Commissioner of Income tax and not from the Pr. Commissioner of Income tax. In the case of Balbir Singh v. NFAC in ITA No. 5755 to 5756 and 5767 & 5768 the Co-ordinate Delhi Bench relied the Hon'ble Jurisdictional High Court decision in the case of Rajesh Gupta (HUF) v. ACIT (supra) quashed the assessment order in which the prior approval was received from the Pr. Commissioner Income Tax. Ld. CIT(A) has rightly decided the issue following the decision of Union of India vs. Rajeev Bansal in favour of the assessee. 10 Ld. AR has fil....
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....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 under Section 148 of the new regime. Thus, in this illustration, the time limit for issuance of a notice under Section 148 of the new regime will end on 18 August, 2022." 12. In the present case the notice was issued on 25-06-2021 for the A.Y. 2017-18 under section 148 of the Act. The surviving time from the period of the limitation was only 5 days. The AO issued the notice u/s 148 A(b) of the Act on 27-05-2022 and the due date to file the reply was 09-06-2022 and reply was submitted on 07-06-2022. The notice should have been issued up to 12-06-2022 but notice was not issued within extended time. The Ld. CIT(A) has rightly held that the assessment m....