TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (7) TMI 967
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.... of the Act. (c) Failure to obtain approval of the Designated Authority (d) The approval accorded by the designated authority u/s 151 of the I.T. Act, 1961 is mechanical in nature and without application of mind. (e) The assessment is reopened on the basis of Third party statement, who has no legal rights and power to address Rashtriya Samajwadi Party (Secular) for the relevant assessment year. 2. That, the notice issued u/s 143(2) of the Act dated 29/04/2024 is in violation of CBDT Instruction F. No. 225/157/2017/ITA-II dated 23.06.2017. 3. That, the Ld. CIT(A) has wrongly confirmed the order passed by the Ld. assessing officer without affording the assessee with an opportunity to cross-examine the deponent. Therefore, the order passed is bad-in-law and is required to be quashed. 4. That, the Ld. CIT(A) has wrongly passed the order u/s 250 of the I.T Act, 1961 without affording a sufficient opportunity of being heard. 5. That, the Ld. CIT(A) has wrongly confirmed the addition of Rs. 2,00,000/- on account of disallowance of deduction u/s 80GGC of the I.T. Act, 1961. 6. That, the Ld. CIT(A) has wrongly confirmed....
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....SB). Keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the present case, I am of the view that the issue raised in 'additional ground' goes to the root of the matter and therefore needs to be admitted. Hence, I, hereby allow the assessee to raise additional ground of appeal. Since this ground raises question about the assumption of jurisdiction and validity of assessment order itself, therefore, I thought it appropriate to take up and decide this additional ground first. 7. Succinctly, the factual panorama of the case is that assessee before me is an Individual. A search and seizure action u/s 132 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 was conducted in the case of RUPPs group of Ahmadabad on 07.09.2022. In this case, a total of 23 Registered Unrecognized Political Parties, more than 35 bogus intermediary entities and 3 major exit providers were covered which was in combine called as RUPP group of Ahmadabad. The search was conducted after credible evidence of a scam going on in the form of donations to Political Parties for claiming bogus deduction u/s 80GGC/80GGB of the Act which are then rerouted back to the donors in cash/RTGS/NEFT or other banking channels, gathered and collated wi....
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....lied upon, and perused the fact of the case including the findings of the ld CIT(A) and other materials brought on record. Shri Kalpesh Doshi, learned Counsel for the assessee, vehemently argued on additional legal ground, stating that notice u/s 148 of the Act is without complying with the provisions of section 282A of the Act. The learned Counsel for the assessee, took me through the notice issued u/s 148 of the Act, which is placed at paper book no. 6 and stated that said notice u/s 148 of the Act is not signed either manually or digitally and therefore, in the absence of valid signature, the notice issued u/s 148 of the Act and the reassessment proceedings carried out is bad in law and is liable to be quashed. On the other hand, the Ld. DR for the Revenue has primarily reiterated the stand taken by the Assessing Officer, which we have already noted in our earlier para and is not being repeated for the sake of brevity. 11. I have considered submissions of both the parties. I note that a notice or an order or any other documents without having signature of the person who has issued such notice loses its relevance and importance and is to be treated as invalid. Any document wit....
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.... the notice or document is issued, that is, either the notice or document is issued in paper form or communicated in electronic form.The requirement of signature on the notice or document issued is not merely formality but is a mandatory requirement and if such notice or document is issued in paper form, the signature shall be done manually and if the notice or document is issued / communicated electronically, the same shall bear signature of the designated income-tax authority via Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) i.e. signed digitally. The DSC Policy of 2018 mandates that every letter, notice, order, etc, issued to Assessee or other addresses within the Department or outside the Department will have to be issued by using digital signature. The reason for the same is that when notice or document is communicated in electronic form bears valid digital signature, the recipient of the same would believe that the notice or document is issued by known sender, which authenticates, that is, proves the genuineness of the notice or document issued and most importantly, neither the sender can deny having issued such notice or document nor such notice or document can be altered by any perso....
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.... - Further, order under section 148A(d) was also passed and a notice under section 148 was issued upon assessee holding that it was a fit case for reopening - Assessee contended that he never received e-mail in which notice under section 148A(b) was sent and, further, when he received notice under section 148 by speed post, same was not signed by Assessing Officer, thus, said notice was invalid - It was noted that notice under section 148 issued upon assessee had no signature affixed on it either digitally or manually and, accordingly, same was invalid and same would not vest Assessing Officer with any further jurisdiction to proceed to reassess income of assessee. Whether, therefore, impugned notice under section 148A(b) and order passed under section 148A(d) and further notice under section 148 were to be set aside - Held, yes [Para 21] [In favour of assessee] 16. Therefore, I note that it was not in dispute that notice issued under section 148 was unsigned and same was neither digitally signed nor manually signed by concerned Assessing Officer. The provisions of section 282A of the Act stipulates that where Act requires notice or other document to be issued by Income....