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2013 (12) TMI 16 - AT - Income TaxValidity of assessment proceedings u/s 147 – Held that:- A notice u/s 148 of the Act was issued on 22-03-2005 and as per the AO, the notice was served on the assessee on 24.03.2005 - Service of notice is the sine qua non for a proceedings u/s 147 of the Act to get underway - , Section 282 of the Act is the governing Section in respect of the procedure for service of such notice - Such a notice may be served either by post, or as if it was a summons issued by a court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 - In the present case, the service was as a summons and not by post. Therefore, the service is governed by the relevant provisions of the CPC, i.e., Order V - The servicee of the notice has nowhere been identified in spite of repeated requests made by the assessee to the Assessing Officer to do so - The Ld. CIT (A) has noted that even after instructions from the CIT (A), the Assessing Officer was not able to name the person on whom the notice was served - In the absence of identification of the servicee, it is, obviously, well impossible to contend that the servicee was an agent of the assessee company - Not only has the alleged servicee not been identified, the person identifying such servicee has also not been even named, thereby violating the provisions of Order V, Rule 18, CPC, as has correctly been taken into consideration by the Ld. CIT (A) – The service of notice u/s 148 of the IT Act was invalid and cannot be said to be merely a procedural defect and it cannot be cured by the participation of the assessee in the re-assessment proceedings – Decided in favour of assessee.
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