NTPC LTD Vs. DCIT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY way of this writ petition, the National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC Limited), a public sector undertaking, is seeking the quashing of a notice dated 03.02.2006 issued by the respondent No.1 (Deputy Commissioner of Income Tax, New Delhi) issued purportedly under Section 148 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as 'the said Act '), whereby the said respondent No.1 has indicated that he has reason to believe that the petitioner 's income chargeable to tax for the assessment year 2000-01 has escaped assessment within the meaning of the said Section 148 and, therefore, the respondent No. 1 proposes to re-assess the income for the said assessment year. By virtue of the said notice, as is the requirement under law, the petitioner was required to deliver a return in the prescribed form for the said assessment year within thirty days of the service of the notice. The said notice was accompanied by a copy of the purported reasons for reopening of the case.

(2.) THE reasons are in respect of several assessment years, namely, 1999-2000, 2000-01, 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04. However, we are, in this petition, concerned only with the assessment year 2000-01. Two reasons have been set out in the said document. Reason one pertains to the non-eligibility of deduction under Section 80IA in respect of the steam turbine of the combined cycle gas power stations belonging to the petitioner. The second reason pertains to the taxability of income tax recoverable by NTPC from the State Electricity Boards '. We shall deal with these purported reasons in greater detail later. For the present, it would be necessary to set out in brief the challenge of the petitioner to the impugned notice dated 03.02.2006. According to the petitioner, the notice is barred by limitation inasmuch as it has been issued beyond four years from the end of the relevant assessment year. In the present case, 2000-01 is the relevant assessment year. Therefore, the four-year period would have ended on 31.03.2005. The notice which is impugned in this petition has been issued on 03.02.2006. This is clearly beyond the period of four years. The only way in which this notice can be saved is if the factual position falls within the parameters specified under the proviso to Section 147 of the said Act.

(3.) ACCORDING to the learned counsel for the petitioner, neither of these two conditions have been satisfied. In other words, there is no income chargeable to tax which has escaped assessment nor has there been any failure on the part of the assessee to disclose fully and truly all material facts necessary for the assessment.