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2019 (12) TMI 321 - HC - Income TaxTransfer of case u/s 127(2)(a) - proper and satisfactory reasons - service of notice - requirement of proper notices and the opportunities of being heard - Held that:- It is clear that an agreement between the two jurisdictional authorities is an essential pre-requisite to be complied with to transfer a case between them. In case of absence of such agreement, the provision of clause (b) of Section 127(2) is to be complied with for passing of an order of transfer where the Assessing Officer or Assessing Officers from whom the case is to be transferred and the Assessing Officer or Assessing Officers to whom the case is to be transferred are not subordinate to the same Principal Director or Director General or Principal Chief Commissioners or Chief Commissioners or Principal Commissioners or Commissioners. It appears that prior to sending the notice dated 07.12.2017, there was agreement between the Director General of Income Tax (Inv), Kochi and the Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, NER, Guwahati belonging to the two jurisdictions. It is neither a pleaded case of the petitioners nor it is submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioners that there was lack of agreement or there was disagreement between the two respective jurisdictional authorities for the purpose of transferring the cases of the petitioners from Dimapur, Nagaland to Kollam, Kerala. From the conspectus of facts, it, thus, transpires that it is not a case that all the cases of the petitioners were only assessed with the ACIT, Circle - Dimapur and the ITO, Ward - I, Dimapur with no financial interests and presence in the State of Kerala. It is not a case of the petitioners that there are only 7 (seven) cases of assessment for them and all those were being assessed at Dimapur taking into consideration their financial dealings only in the State of Dimapur and with no connection whatsoever in the State of Kerala. Rather, it goes to show that a substantial part of their financial and business dealings are being carried out in the State of Kerala through various entities. The respondent authorities are found to have provided adequate reasons in the notices dated 23.05.2018 expressly as to why the cases of the petitioners are required to be transferred to the ACIT, Central Circle - Kollam in the State of Kerala which, in turn, have explained the situation implied as to why the cases of the petitioners should not be considered for assessment in the State of Nagaland. Thus, this Court is of the considered view that the notices dated 23.05.2018 did not suffer from absence of reasons. Regarding service of notice - Held that:- A plea has been raised by the petitioners that the first notice escaped their attention which resulted into denial of reasonable opportunity to respond to the said notice, more particularly, for the fact that the first notice did not stipulate any time period within which the objections to the proposal of transfer were to be filed. At the same time, the petitioners have averred in the writ petition that they having received the notice at a much belated stage, were thinking of filing replies to the same and had sent the same to their attorney on record, but by that time, the impugned orders dated 18.07.2018 were served on them. But the petitioners are again conspicuously silent as to when the copies of the first notice were served on them and have not stated anything in rebuttal to the claim of the sender. To raise a credible plea of not being afforded reasonable opportunity to them to respond to the said notice, it entails a disclosure on the part of the petitioners as regards the date of receipt of the said notice by them. But no such disclosure has been made by the petitioners. Considering the time periods, indicated above, it cannot be said that the respondent authorities had fallen short of on that count in adhering to the principles of natural justice. Regarding assigning of reasons - Held that:- there was no denial of affording reasonable opportunity of being heard in the cases of the petitioners. By assigning adequate reasons therein, the petitioners were given adequate opportunities to respond to the two notices containing the proposal to transfer their cases of assessment - the petitioners did not avail the opportunity so granted to them by submitting their responses and, as such, the plea of denial of the principles of natural justice is found to be not tenable and sustainable. Petition dismissed.
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