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2022 (11) TMI 737 - GUJARAT HIGH COURTReopening of assessment u/s 147 - change of opinion - reason to believe - Onus to prove - receipt of share application money from the four entities alleged to be unexplained - HELD THAT:- When the issue and aspect on the basis of which the reassessment was sought to be acted upon, were considered in course of the regular assessment and the details were supplied by the assessee in that regard, the entire onus would shift on the department to examine the details in light of the income tax law to be applied to ensure that those details were properly offered for tax. When such material was considered and the assessment was concluded resulting into assessment order, reopening was not permissible in law on the basis of similar or same information. The purported exercise of powers to reopen the concluded assessment, the Assessing Officer is not permitted to just proceed to re-verify the facts or to undertake a fishing inquiry into the issues examined and concluded in the original assessment. Such kind of exercise of powers would partake abuse of powers to reopen the assessment The ground of receipt of share application money from the four entities alleged to be unexplained by the Assessing Officer to proceed to exercise powers of reassessment, was the very issue considered by the Assessing Officer by calling for the relevant information in that regard in course of regular assessment undertaken for the year under consideration. As the details from record indicated, the assessee had supplied all the relevant material in the nature of accounting entries, resolution passed, names of the allottees and their addresses and PAN numbers, which had satisfied the Assessing Officer at the relevant time about the genuineness of the entities and the transactions. There was not reason to doubt the same at the subsequent juncture by seeking further inquiry on the basis of changed opinion. The exercise undertaken seeking to reopen the assessment and issue of notice under section 148 of the Act and the decision to reject the objections of the assessee, both render unacceptable in law, liable to be set aside as illegal. As a result of above reasons and discussions, the present petition deserves to be allowed.
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