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2016 (11) TMI 76 - HC - Income TaxReopening of assessment - non issue of notice u/s 143(2) - Held that:- We are unable to understand why a notice under Section 143(2) was not issued for the year 2009-10 when the same was issued for the year 2010-11. The order sheet, Annexure- A2 annexed along with the papers shows that the Assessing Officer was aware of the need for issuance of the said notice as early as in April 2012. The only reason for not issuing a Section 143(2) notice has been recorded by him in the order sheet as “it is not possible to generate notice under Section 143(2) through an AST, since the assessee has not filed the return electronically”. The order sheet further shows that the assessee was again requested to file their return in response to Section 148 electronically. This conduct of the Assessing Officer is rather surprising and it defies logic, since the assessee cannot be forced and coerced to file their return electronically so as to then enable the Assessing Officer to issue a notice under Section 143(2) of the Act. This is more so because even in the absence of such an electronic return for the year 2010-11, the Assessing Officer had infact issued the mandatory notice for that year on 11.01.2012. It is beyond comprehension that even though the Assessing Officer had time till 30.09.2011 to issue notice under Section 143(2) and even though he had recorded the reasons for assuming jurisdiction under Section 147 for re-assessment on 21.09.2011, he had still not chosen to issue the notice which would have then given him the jurisdiction to continue with the proceedings. We are unable to obtain any reasons to these omissions and it is rather distressing, as we have recorded in the opening lines of the judgment, that on account of this omission and non compliance of mandatory and imperative provisions, the assessee would now be entitled to reliefs which they otherwise would not have able to obtain. We have, therefore, no other option but to hold in the absence of a Section 143(2) notice, proceedings of assessment initiated, conducted and completed for the year 2009-10 will have to fail but for the year 2010-11, since the proceedings have been continued on the basis of a validly issued Section 143(2) notice, same is being upheld.
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