2017 (12) TMI 1908

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....43 r.w.s.147 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act"). 2. The grounds of appeal raised by the assessee are two fold; (i) challenging the jurisdiction under section 147 and (ii) challenging the action of the Assessing Officer (AO) in making certain/disallowances in pursuance of the assumption of jurisdiction under s.147 of the Act. 3. When the matter was called for hearing, the Ld.AR for the assessee, at the outset, challenged the action of the AO in usurping jurisdiction under s.147 of the Act wrongfully. The Ld.AR claimed that the reasons recorded by the AO does not meet the pre-requisites for assumption of jurisdiction and therefore the notice issued pursuant to such recording of reasons is bad in law. It w....

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....ete non-starter and requires to be struck down. 4. The Ld.DR, on the other hand, submitted that the time limit prescribed under s.149 for issuance of notice under s.147 of the Act is not applicable since the likely escapement at the time of recording of reasons was more than Rs.1 lakh which whittled down at assessment stage. The Ld.AR relied on the order of the CIT(A) for upholding the action of the AO under s.147 of the Act. 5. We have carefully considered the rival submissions. We have also perused the reasons recorded for issuance of notice under s.147 of the Act which is under challenge. It will be apt to reproduce the reasons recorded hereunder:- "The Search & Seizure action carried out by the Department on 25.11.2009 in....

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....d from other wing of the department and find out if there is any escapement of income. The AO merely seeks to conclude that there is a case for investigation towards truth of the alleged transactions. This is not the same thing as saying that there are 'reasons to belief' that some chargeable income has escaped assessment. Ostensibly, the AO at best has made out a case of 'probable' escapement in distinction to a definite conclusion of escapement of income. Thus, the requirement of section 147 is clearly not fulfilled. 5.2. Needless to say, provisions of section 147 which gives power to reopen a completed assessment can be invoked only when the conditions precedent for exercising the jurisdiction exists. Exercise of power under s.147 of ....