The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, Jaipur Bench held in the case Charan Singh Vs. ITO Ward- Bhiwadi that Service of notice for re-assessment is not a mere procedural requirement.
The bench clarified that the issuance of notice under section 148 and service of such notice upon the assessee are jurisdictional requirements that must be mandatorily complied with and these are not a mere procedural requirement.
The tribunal observed that any breach of such jurisdictional requirement cannot be read as a technical breach which can be rectified but will render the whole reassessment proceedings void ab-initio which are liable to be quashed.
The appellant had not received the notice for re-assessment posted in his address, but where it sent through speed post has been received back unserved and then he doesn’t make any effort to serve the notice to correct address.
The Tribunal further checked the decision of Hon’ble High Court in the case of CIT v. Chetan Gupta (supra), by the decisions of the case,
Under Section 148 of the Act, the issue of notice to the Assessee and service of such notice upon the Assessee are jurisdictional requirements that must be mandatorily complied with. They are not mere procedural requirements. And also, the Reassessment proceedings finalize by an AO without service of notice on the Assessee under Section 148 (1) of being invalid and liable to be quashed.
In the above-cited decisions, in absence of service of notice issued under section 148 on the assessee, the reassessment proceedings completed under section 147 read with 144 ex-parte qua the assessee deserved to be quashed and are thus set-aside. The appeal of the assessee allowed.
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