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2019 (1) TMI 156 - HC - Income TaxReopening of assessment - limitation of four years - exception to exclude the time during which the Court stayed the proceedings - time limit for completion of the assessment, reassessment, and recomputation - Held that:- The notice u/s 148 may be issued at any time for assessing, or reassessing, or recomputing. If that notice is issued based on any finding or direction, or order by any authority in any proceeding under this Act, it may be based on a Court’s order in any proceeding under any other law. That exception apart under Section 150, I find no other. In other words, Section 149 does not control this provision if the proceedings have judicial or quasijudicial backing. In fact, the Department’s defence, filed as its counsel’s statement, too admits that Section 149 has no statutory exception to exclude the time during which the Court stayed the proceedings. It places on the record that “there is no statutory support for such a claim unlike that available under Section 153, which specifically provides for the exclusion of the period during which the assessment proceeding is stayed by order of injunction of any court.” Then it adds, “the present claim is, therefore, made on the basis of equitable consideration.” I am afraid once a statute governs a field of activity, then equity has no role to play; equity yields to a statute. Under these circumstances, hold that the proceedings the Department initiated against the petitioner could not be sustained. - decided in favour of assessee
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