TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (7) TMI 619
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....me-tax Act, 1961. Accordingly, the said notice is without jurisdiction, invalid, and liable to be quashed. 2. On the facts and in the circumstances of the case and in law, the notice issued u/s.148 of the Act, dated 08/04/2022 has been issued beyond the period of three years without appreciating the facts that the Income alleged to have escaped assessment does not exceed the amount of fifty lakh Rupees or more specified under section 149(1) (b) of the Act. Hence, the said 148 notice is bad in law. 3. On the facts and in the circumstances of the case and in law, the notice dated 08/04/2022 u/s 148 of the Act, has been issued without obtaining approval from the appropriate specified authority as per the provisions of section 151 of the Act. Thus, the notice issued under section 148 of the Act is invalid and bad-in-law. 4. On the facts and in the circumstances of the case and in law, the notice u/s 148 of the Act dated 08/04/2022 as well as the reassessment proceedings are bad in law and void ab initio as the alleged approval u/s.151 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 was not granted in accordance with law. The purported approval has been shown only through a compu....
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....e assessing Officer and set aside by the Ld. CIT(A) may kindly be deleted. The appellant further prays for such other relief(s) may please be granted as may deem fit a just under the facts a circumstance of the case." 3. Brief facts as culled out from the records are that assessee did not file his return of income for the year under consideration. Case was taken up for scrutiny for the reason that during the year under consideration assessee has purchased a plot for consideration of Rs. 22,00,000/- vide document no.4807/2017 dated 18.05.2017 and made deposits of Rs. 24,46,441/- in his bank account nos. 37620100007766 and 37620100004193 maintained with Bank of Baroda, Varap Branch, the source of which remains unexplained. Accordingly, for initiating reopening proceedings, notice u/s.148 was issued on 08.04.2022. 3.1. To contest on the validity of the impugned reassessment proceedings and the reassessment order passed thereafter, ld. Counsel for the assessee referred to order passed u/s.148A(d) dated 08.04.2022 wherein at para-5, it is stated that necessary approval for passing the said order and issuance of notice u/s.148 was taken from ld. PCIT-1, Thane. He also referred to n....
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....ing approval from Principal Commissioner of Income Tax (Respondent No.2). Since the aforesaid order was passed, as well as the notice under section 148 was issued, after the expiry of three years from the end of A.Y. 2017-18, as per the substituted provisions of re-assessment, the authority specified under Section 151(ii) of the Act (i.e. Principal Chief Commissioner or Chief Commissioner) was required to grant approval. Accordingly, we conclude that in the present case, the approval has been obtained from the authority specified under Section 151(1) of the new regime instead of the authority specified under Section 151(ii) of the new regime." 6. We also take note of another decision of Hon'ble Jurisdictional High Court of Bombay in the case of Skypak Travels (P) Ltd. vs. Income Tax Officer [2026] 185 taxmann.com 963 (Bom). Fact in this case as recorded in para-4 relevant to the present case are extracted below: "4....... (b) For Assessment Year 2018-19, a notice dated 23 March 2022 is stated to have been issued under Section 148A(b) of the IT Act alleging that information was flagged on the portal in accordance with risk management strategy and that the Pe....
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....nsequently, the notice and order were quashed. Relevant paragraphs of the said judgment are as under: "3. The impugned order and the impugned notice both dated 7th April 2022 state that the Authority that has accorded the sanction is the PCIT, Mumbai 5. The matter pertains to Assessment Year ("AY") 2018-19 and since the impugned order as well as the notice are issued on 7th April 2022, both have been issued beyond a period of three years. Therefore, the sanctioning authority has to be the PCCIT as provided under Section 151 (ii) of the Act. The provisio to Section 151 has been inserted only with effect from 1st April 2023 and, therefore, shall not be applicable to the matter at hand. 4. In this circumstances, as held by this Court in Siemens Financial Services Private Limited v. Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax & Ors., the sanction is invalid and consequently, the impugned order and impugned notice both dated 7th April 2022 under section 148A(d) and 148 of the Act are hereby quashed and set aside.' 6.2. The conclusion drawn by the Hon'ble Court as in para-25 is as under: "Where notice under section 148 was issued beyond three years from end of....