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2012 (9) TMI 520 - HC - Income TaxPower to transfer cases - Shift of registered office from Delhi to the State of Maharashtra - Held that:- The Director General or Chief Commissioner or Commissioner may, after giving the assessee a reasonable opportunity of being heard in the matter, wherever it is possible to do so, and after recording his reasons for doing so, transfer any case from one or more Assessing Officers subordinate to him (whether with or without concurrent jurisdiction) to any other Assessing Officer or Assessing Officers (whether with or without concurrent jurisdiction) also subordinate to him - the word “may” in Section 127 should be read as “shall”. The requirement of giving an assessee a reasonable opportunity of being heard wherever it is possible to do so, is mandatory. The discretion of the authorities is only as to what is a reasonable opportunity in a given case and on the question, whether it is possible in a given case to provide the opportunity. As in the present case assessee on several occasions had appeared before respondent no.1 who had passed the impugned order - the petitioners' objections were filed on 19.12.2011 and the impugned order was passed on 05.01.2012 i.e. within 16 days as the Paragraphs 6 & 7 of the affidavit in rejoinder refer to the petitioner's letter dated 19.12.2011 and the impugned order dated 05.01.2012 respectively. No details have been furnished as to when the petitioner's Counsel were heard. Paragraph 8 merely states that the sequence of facts and correspondence indicate that sufficient opportunities of being heard were given to the petitioner without furnishing details in respect of the alleged hearing. Paragraph 8 of the rejoinder further states that the petitioner had indicated in its letter that it preferred to submit its objection in writing and that the same were therefore considered before passing the impugned order. This is incorrect. In the correspondence which we have already referred to the petitioner had expressly requested for a personal hearing, thus he impugned order is liable to be set aside on the ground that the petitioner had not been heard - in favour of assessee.
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