BHAGWANDAS RUPCHAND PARWANI Vs. ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER INCOME TAX

JUDGEMENT

(1.) At the outset, we may record that Special Civil Application No. 436 of 2024, in this bunch, is being detagged as the facts therein are somewhat different. In the remaining bunch of writ petitions, challenge is to the notice dtd. 6/5/2022 for the Assessment Year 2014-15, (in short A.Y. 2014-15), issued under Sec. 153C of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (in short as " the Act'1961) as also the order dtd. 2/12/2023 of rejection of the objection filed by the petitioners herein. Further challenge is to the notice dtd. 11/12/2023 under Sec. 142(1) of the Act'1961. The prayer is to restrain the respondents from enforcing the compliance of the impugned notice under Sec. 153C dtd. 6/5/2022 for A.Y. 2014-15.

(2.) The grounds to challenge the initiation of proceedings under Sec. 153C of the Act'1961 are that :-

(3.) Elaborating the above noted grounds, it was argued by Mr. R.K.Patel, learned Senior Advocate appearing for the assessee that the satisfaction note of the searched person dtd. 7/4/2022 and the satisfaction note of the petitioner (other than the searched person) dtd. 27/4/2022 are verbatim. It is, thus, evident that the Assessing Officer of the petitioner did not apply his mind independently and merely proceeded on the satisfaction note recorded by the Assessing Officer of the searched person. Reliance is placed on the decision of the Apex Court in the case of Canyon Financial Services Limited vs. Income Tax Officer, [2017] taxmann.com 71 (Delhi) decided on 10/7/2017 and in the case of Super Malls (P.) Ltd. vs. Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, 8 New Delhi, [2020] 115 taxmann.com 105 (SC) decided on 5/3/2020, to agitate that in both the cases, the Delhi High Court as also the Apex Court had noted that there has to be a satisfaction of the Assessing Officer and the requirement of recording of satisfaction note before issuing notice under Sec. 153C of the Act'1961 is mandatory. In a case where there was no satisfaction note by the Assessing Officer of the person other than the searched person, recorded independently, there cannot be any justification to proceed under Sec. 153C of the Act.